The United Kingdom government has rejected a proposal made by the House of Commons Treasury Committee to regulate crypto retail trading in the same way it oversees gambling, highlighting that it “firmly disagrees” with the committee’s stance. The House Treasury Committee is headed by Harriett Baldwin from Conservative Party.
The report from UK’s parliamentary treasure committee released in May said, “We therefore strongly recommend that the Government regulates retail trading and investment activity in unbacked cryptoassets as gambling rather than as a financial service, consistent with its stated principle of ‘same risk, same regulatory outcome’.”
The minister also said the proposal would also run completely counter to globally agreed recommendations from global standard-setting bodies, including the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the G20 Financial Stability Board (FSB) with input from domestic regulators, he added.
Legislators worry that treating the sector as a financial service would lead to consumers thinking it is safer than it is, with UK regulators warning investors they can lose all their money.
Treating cryptoassets as a form of gambling would put Britain at odds with global and European Union regulators and fail to mitigate risks from the sector, Britain’s Financial Services Minister Andrew Griffith said on last Thursday. Online gambling and casinos have become a legal tussle with activists protesting for stricter regulation.
In 2022, Rishi Sunak, then finance minister and now prime minister, said he wanted to make the U.K. a crypto hub, but the sector has warned its rulemaking is trailing behind rival jurisdictions such as the European Union.
