The U.K. Treasury has decided not to launch a government-backed non-fungible token (NFT) in order to make the country a major center for the cryptocurrency industry.
The U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was supposed to release the coin when he was chancellor in April 2022, but the Royal Mint ran into trouble. The Royal Mint had previously announced plans for employing blockchain technology to track its gold supplies in 2017.
Andrew Griffith, the economic secretary for the UK, said in a statement on Monday that the plans are not moving forward “at this time.” But the proposal will still be looked at. Harriet Baldwin, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, said that the government’s chief financial minister would be asked if issuing an NFT “remains the policy of his department.”
According to the BBC, Baldwin highlighted economic uncertainties across the bitcoin business as a factor in sunsetting the collection.
“We have not yet seen a lot of evidence that our constituents should be putting their money in these speculative tokens unless they are prepared to lose all their money,” stated Chair of the Treasury Select Committee Harriet Baldwin. “So perhaps that is why the Royal Mint has made this decision in conjunction with the Treasury.”
Recently, a number of world leaders have shown that they are open to NFTs and other Web3 technologies. Japan said in October that it would invest in the digital transformation of the country through NFTs and metaverse services. Even though the country has strict cryptocurrency laws, China opened an NFT and digital asset market in January.
Content Source: coindesk.com
