On Monday, U.K. Finance Minister Rishi Sunak publicly asked the Royal Mint to create and issue an NFT sometime during the summer. This is part of the process of Great Britain looking to position itself as a leader in terms of digital currencies as it looks to also increase regulation.
The Royal Mint will reveal details about the NFT in the coming months. NFTs or non-fungible tokens are digital assets that secure ownership of a virtual item such as an image, virtual item, or other creative applications. An optimist sees NFTs as the future and an economy that can reward and monetize more forms of value-creation. A cynic would see the NFT as a cash-grab that is taking advantage of the hype and excitement around cryptocurrencies.
Although the NFT is what is drawing headlines, the bigger impact may be from the regulation framework unveiled by Sunak. These include measures regarding stablecoins, using crypto to regulate trade, the legality of DAOs, taxability of deFi, the establishment of a regulatory board for crypto-assets, and using the blockchain to issue government debt in a more transparent and cheaper manner.
This also follows the U.S. government and President Joe Biden signing an executive order for crypto regulation. E.U. officials have taken small steps but have not revealed a complete framework.
Until now, the U.K. has taken a pretty adversarial attitude towards crypto including shutting down any firms. However, this pivot may be about the U.K. looking to replace some of the finance business it lost when it left the E.U. by becoming a leader in Web3 while the U.S. and E.U. still struggle to come up with a proper regulatory framework.
Of course, Sunak has been in the news lately due to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's troubles and that he would be next in line for the role in the event of Johnson's resignation. He has seemed to curry enough favor among Conservatives and across the aisle that he would have a decent chance of winning an election especially given the country's recent shift towards Conservatives despite Johnson's rocky tenure.
Sunak also has a different pedigree than previous Prime Ministers and U.K. politicians with his Indian background, education at Stanford, a career in Silicon Valley, and marriage to the daughter of a billionaire and the founder of Infosys Technologies
