UK Prime Minister Theresa May has said the government “should be looking at cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin (Bitcoin) very seriously.”
“Action on cryptocurrencies may be needed precisely because of the way they are used, particularly by criminals,” May said in a television interview in Davos with Bloomberg.
“The surge in Bitcoin use has been increasingly developing. “I think it’s something that we do need to look at,” she added.
Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, also urged to be “cautious” about Bitcoin.
“Possibly we do need to look at the way we regulate this environment before the amount of outstanding Bitcoin becomes large enough to be systemically important in the global economy,” he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, The Daily Telegraph reported.
He said: “It is not there yet but it could get there soon.”
He added, however, that cryptocurrency regulation does not need to inadvertently constrain the potential of the technology that underlies, the blockchain.
Hammond said “it needs to be done at the international level and will be on the agenda for the G20 meeting in Argentina later this year.”