20th December 2023 > > The UK.

tl;dr

Crypto firms in the UK – and the UK in general – are being badly let-down by this technocratic government of incompetence.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

Oh no, here we go again (*). The leveraged children are back early from their Christmas holidays. There is a significant risk of a long squeeze, taking us back down to the psychologically important $40k, a breach of which to the downside may be the very last time that ever happens.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Milk Road

https://milkroad.com/subscribe/?ref=o5CmCFhBAK

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The FCA

The UK’s financial regulator appears to have signed up to Elizabeth Warren’s anti-crypto army.

Recent moves by the FCA have led to several firms quitting the UK. Binance has stopped onboarding new UK customers, Bybit and PayPal have left the UK crypto market, gate.io no longer serves the UK market (except for withdrawals) and DeFi platforms are increasingly restricting access to those whose VPN suggests they are based in the UK. The latest example is Injective Hub thus stopping some degens from accessing possibly one of the most exciting recent developments in L1, with its associated meme NINJA, or at least those degens who don’t know what VPN stands for (a vanishingly small population, but that’s kind of the point).

Revolut has now stopped corporate clients from buying cryptos, and one should expect a similar restriction soon for retail.

It is good to know what Rishi Sunak (when Chancellor of the Exchequer) truly meant by the pledge “It’s my ambition to make the U.K. a global hub for crypto-asset technology.”

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Global crypto hub UK

At least that is what Jeremy Hunt (not his real surname but I would start blushing if I spelt it correctly), the current Chancellor of the Exchequer – though heaven knows that must come to an end soon for all our sakes – believes when made this preposterous claim just yesterday:

“The U.K., and London in particular, has become the global crypto hub …”

You are having a laugh, Hunty boy. The chutzpah of using the definite article in that sentence is breathtaking.

Hunt has promised that the recently appointed Economic Secretary Bim Afolami will be free to meet with crypto firms to discuss their concerns about getting access to banking services.

Curious Cryptos Ltd. remains unbanked to this day, despite the Board’s efforts. We are not the only crypto company to fall foul of TradFi’s fear of this challenge to their hegemony.

If this is what “the global crypto hub” looks like, then the dearth and paucity of the current UK’s government’s imagination and ambitions is laid bare.

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(*) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jgUfIKsu9M

One of my few (maybe the only one?) claims to fame is that I have been centre stage with the Dubbies singing this song. That is possibly the only positive thing that came out of my marriage. More on that saga in a day or two …