23rd May 2024 > > The UK & FIT 21.

tl;dr

The US has sparked a dramatic regulatory about-turn in the UK, further fuelling demand for BTC and ETH.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

There’s a lot of alts popping up and popping down, and I mean the more established ones rather than just the scams. Memes are also generally quite resilient it seems. Alt season has traditionally been an indicator of the approaching end of the bull market for that particular cycle. I just don’t see that this time, at least not yet. But, it is worth noting for now, just in case.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The UK

Blimey.

After all these years.

Rishi Sunak once made the claim that he wanted the UK to be a crypto hub when he was merely Chancellor of the Exchequer, a promise he reneged on time after time. Finally, something has actually happened to encourage that outcome. Until now, all legislative and regulatory action in the UK has been laser focussed on stopping crypto business and preventing crypto investment in the UK.

Coming so shortly after the dramatic pivot in the US to become crypto friendly – purely for electoral reasons, but let’s not be churlish about that – perhaps Sunak is somehow hoping that embracing cryptos might head off an entirely deserved, and an almost total decimation (not in the Roman sense), of the Conservative Party at the next general election in just six weeks.

He is wrong about this hope of his, but we are all very pleased to finally see one of the two main parties change their previous stance of suppressing financial freedom for the individual.

…

Well, almost, but not quite. However, this is a decent first step.

WisdomTree has gained approval from the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) to list spot BTC and spot ETH ETPs on the LSE:

https://www.wisdomtree.eu/en-gb/press-room/tabs/latest-news/wisdomtree-obtains-approval-to-list-physically-backed-bitcoin-and-ethereum-etps-on-the-lse

These ETPs will be physically backed with the assets held in cold storage. In effect, there is no notable difference between these UK based ETPs and the US based ETFs. Except in one very material way.

These ETPs are only accessible to “professional” investors.

The likes of you and I are once again excluded, a very deliberate move by the FCA, whose real name is F*** Clients Always, though its publicly accessible literature pretends otherwise.

Alexis Marinof, Head of Europe at Wisdom Tree, underplays the significance of this development for crypto adoption by institutions in the UK:

“FCA approval in this respect could result in greater institutional adoption of the asset class, as many professional investors have been unable to gain exposure to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies due to regulatory limitations and uncertainty – we would expect FCA approval of our crypto ETPs’ prospectus to remove those barriers to entry.”

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – FIT 21

The House voted in favour of FIT 21 yesterday with a significant majority, highlighting again that the previous partisan split in favour of, or against cryptos, is crumbling before our very eyes: