United Kingdom: Amendment to Financial Services and Markets Bill to include Cryptoassets

On 21 October 2022, an amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill was introduced in the House of Commons by MP and Financial Secretary to the Treasury Andrew Griffith. The amendment aims to expand the Treasury's powers to regulate the crypto assets promotion and related activities. The Bill would give the Treasury the power to regulate the use of digital settlement assets (DSAs), defined as a digital representation of value which can be used as payment, is traded and stored digitally, and may or may not use distributed ledger technology. Furthermore, the Treasury will be able to issue recognition orders for certain DSA service providers, thereby bringing them under the Bank of England's regulatory oversight and regulating DSA service providers more generally.