The government is pushing ‘very strongly’ to create new rules for stablecoin and exchange services in the next six months. Finance Minister Bim Afolami said this at an event organized by Coinbase.
The government plans to ‘finalize these issues as soon as possible’ within the next six months, which should be legally clear by January 2025.
Afolami’s comments follow the Treasury’s response to last August’s consultation. In that consultation, it was agreed that the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority would jointly monitor systematized stablecoins.
In October 2023, the UK Government announced proposals to bring the crypto sector under the jurisdiction of financial regulation. One of the requirements is that firms must obtain authorization from the FCA to carry out crypto-related activities.
Following this announcement, several crypto companies, including Revolut and Bitfinex, suspended their services in the UK; to comply with FCA rules, Coinbase last month began asking UK users to submit risk awareness forms.
