Britain will initially focus on stablecoins regulation instead of the broad cryptocurrency market, Reuters has learned, citing UK financial services minister John Glen.
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According to him, the authorities should first deal with digital currencies developed by centralized giants like Facebook.
"There is the potential for some firms to swiftly achieve dominance and crowd out other players, due to their ability to scale and plug into existing online services," Glen added.
However, Glen noted Britain has no plans on total ban as the country has a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" here to make vast strides in the efficiency of financial services. Earlier this year, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ordered unregistered crypto companies to cease operations and return funds to investors.
In particular, the FCA warned on January 8 cryptocurrency companies that had not applied for registration with the SEC by December 15 must stop their cryptocurrency-related operations. In the e-mail that was sent by the regulator to the companies in question, the regulator warned the companies "should consider all the relevant issues carefully and, where possible, return any money or crypto assets."
As iHodl earlier reported Visa intends to use the stablecoin USDC on the Ethereum blockchain to allow settlement transactions on its network. Thus, the Visa program will eliminate the need to convert cryptos to fiat money for transactions.
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