29th May 2025 > > The UK & Pakistan.

tl;dr

This is going to shock you – the UK is warming, ever so slightly, towards cryptos. I know, I am struggling to believe it myself. We should take a look at Pakistan, which is providing inspirational crypto leadership to other nations, but we won’t.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

A US court has declared Trump’s tariffs to be illegal, which has been well received by the US stock market but ignored by all other risk assets, which is an interesting outcome. The decision is being appealed, and in the meantime, Trump will continue to wage his Tariff Wars as he sees fit. I suspect the legal process will become redundant as it is superseded by events.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Blimey O’Reilly, a change of heart from the UK

Under the previous government, the UK became a most unfriendly place for the crypto industry, and for crypto investors. Despite our desperate need to feed the voracious maw of the NHS with ever greater amounts of taxpayers’ money, Sunak and Hunt refused to countenance giving cryptos a break. To be honest, I wasn’t holding out much hope for their successors in this regard. When the minister responsible for cryptos, Tulip Siddiq, also has a day job of enforcing financial ethics but then finds herself heading to the slammer for (allegedly) ripping off some of the poorest people of Bangladesh, a suitable legislative framework for cryptos was never going to happen.

Now with Siddiq preparing herself for twenty years or more of jail time (allegedly) then perhaps some breathing space has been given to the UK to reassess its attitude towards cryptos. And I sense a warming. A word of warning, mind. Let’s not get too excited, because all UK governments have proved so disappointing on so many levels for the last decade or so. But progress is progress.

The UK’s financial regulator, the FCA, has announced it is seeking “further views” on its two latest proposals. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get off to a good start when David Geale, executive director for payments and digital finance at the FCA, claims when launching this new initiative that:

“At the FCA, we have long supported innovation that benefits consumers and markets.”

That is such an extreme lie that I already have in my possession live video footage of Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-un, and the mullahs of Iran, all spontaneously leaping to their feet in loving applause at the sheer audacity of it.

…

The first paper addresses the regulation of stablecoins, weighing in at a mighty 239 pages long:

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/consultation/cp25-14.pdf

I know the CCC is dedicated to the task of giving our readers the key information of all regulatory developments that might, or might not, impact wholesale crypto adoption. But, crikey, this paper promises to be a tough sell.

The second one – entitled “A prudential regime for cryptoasset firms” – is, in comparison, a miserly 111 pages long:

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/consultation/cp25-15.pdf

Again, life feels a little too short to get deep into this document too. What to do?

…

You know, if I was really convinced that the UK was serious about implementing a legislative and regulatory framework that encouraged and nourished innovation and development for the crypto industry, I would actually spend a day or more trawling through these two documents. Just for the record, you can see why my friends describe me as a barrel of laughs.

But – and this is a big but – you and I both know, in our heart of hearts, that the UK ain’t gonna do anything this year, next year, or probably any year after that, unless forced to by events.

Until that time, the FCA and its proposals can go hang. There are far more exciting developments happening elsewhere with regards to cryptos that do not involve the UK, so I am comfortable with this decision of mine.

…

I stumbled across Moody’s latest assessment of the UK which includes this statement:

“… an inability of the UK’s institutional set-up to formulate and implement growth-enhancing economic policies.”

Moody’s has called it, but no-one’s listening.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Pakistan

There are clearly some clever cookies in the upper echelons of the Government of Pakistan.

This week, Bilal Bin Saqib, MBE, was promoted from CEO of Pakistan Crypto Council to be appointed as a special assistant to the prime minister on blockchain and cryptocurrency. In his previous role he headed an initiative to allocate 2,000 megawatts of electricity to bitcoin mining on behalf of the government. In the first few days of the new job. he has even more exciting news to present:

“(The Pakistan government) … is setting up its own Bitcoin strategic reserve.”

Bilal makes no bones about the motivation for doing so:

“We are getting inspired by the U.S. government”.

And in even better news:

"We will be holding these Bitcoins and we will never, ever sell them."

It starts as a trickle, and all of a sudden it becomes a flood. It’s a shame the UK won’t notice until it’s too late.