UK crypto advocates call for consistent policy after Labour landslide

July 5, 2024 Coin Telegraph

At least one industry leader suggested that crypto policy in the United Kingdom would be “business as usual” despite the change in government.

The Labour Party will be the primary ruling party of the United Kingdom’s government after a landslide victory on July 4. Though party leadership has rarely made crypto and blockchain part of its official position, advocates have called for the new government to continue the work it started under the Conservatives.

As of July 5, U.K. election results showed that Labour won 412 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons while the Conservatives would likely win 122 seats — a drop of roughly 250, pushing them out of leadership. Now former Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak has already resigned as Labour leader Keir Starmer prepares to become the next head of government.

Before the announcement of the general election, the U.K. government expected to introduce a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and payment stablecoins in July. Many experts have suggested that such plans could be delayed by months, with the House of Commons in recess following the announcement and another scheduled for summer before party conference season begins in autumn.

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UK Legislators urge caution in retail digital pound rollout

December 2, 2023 Coin Telegraph

CBDC

The committee’s report recommends imposing lower initial limits on the value of retail digital pounds to alleviate the risk of potential bank runs amid market instability.

British legislators are urging a careful stance regarding implementing a retail digital pound.

Members of the Treasury Select Committee have expressed reservations regarding the possible launch of a retail digital pound, underscoring the need for thoughtful examination before execution.

In the interim, the committee’s report recommends imposing lower initial limits on the value of retail digital pounds to alleviate the risk of potential bank runs amid market instability.

*Screenshot of the Treasury Committee report Source: UK Parliament*

The report addressed privacy concerns, recommending that any legislation introducing a digital pound should strictly limit the use of data by the government or the BoE.

The report proposes that in the event of legislation for the introduction of a digital pound, it should expressly limit the Government and Bank of England from utilizing data acquired through the digital pound for purposes beyond those already sanctioned for law enforcement.

Committee chair Harriett Baldwin stressed the need for compelling evidence before contemplating the introduction of a retail digital pound.

London Stock Exchange seeks digital assets director

November 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

In a LinkedIn job posting the London Stock Exchange Group says it's seeking a digital assets lead with a “passion” for digital assets, crypto and blockchain.

The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), the parent company of the London Stock Exchange and other fintech companies, has posted on LinkedIn that it's seeking a director of digital assets.

LSEG says it is looking for candidates who have a “passion for and understanding of digital assets, cryptocurrencies and distributed ledger technology,” among other skills and requirements.

According to the posting the future digital asset manager for LSEG will be helping the company outline and deploy a commercial strategy for “a suite of new infrastructure solutions and capabilities, as well as developing LSEG’s brand and ecosystem in digital private markets.”

A representative from LSEG told Cointelegraph that it could not provide any further details on the development at the time.

This latest development after the London Stock Exchange announced that it will create a traditional assets trading platform using blockchain technology. On Sept. 4, the legacy financial institution said it plans to use the technology to enhance the efficiency of holding, buying and selling traditional assets.

However, Murray Roos, the LSE Group’s head of capital markets, said at the time that it would not be building anything around cryptocurrencies.

The United Kingdom has been cracking down on its local crypto scene after passing a bill allowing authorities to seize Bitcoin (BTC) used for crime and announced plans for upcoming stablecoin regulations in October.

In September, the U.K. financial watchdog gave crypto companies a marketing compliance warning and a deadline to align with its standards by January 2024.

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DeepMind co-founder chides Elon over UK AI summit comments: ‘He’s not an AI scientist’

November 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

World renowned AI scientist Mustafa Suleyman appears to disagree with Elon Musk’s assessment of the threats and benefits A.I. technologies could pose in the future.

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Inflection AI and co-founder of Google’s DeepMind, had some strong words for Elon Musk during a post-event interview with the BBC after the recent United Kingdom artificial intelligence (AI) summit concluded on Nov. 2.

As Cointelegraph reported, Musk leaned in to his penchant for sensational commentary during an interview with U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak at the close of the two day event.

My conversation with @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/rn21pB6rlT
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) November 2, 2023

During the conversation, Musk remarked that AI was like “a magic genie,” before warning “usually those stories don’t end well.”

The sometimes richest man in the world also warned that AI would eventually do virtually every job, something he apparently believes will cause humans to struggle to find purpose for their lives.

Musk also discussed the existential dangers that he believes AI presents, including the necessity to include a “physical off switch” for AI systems so that we can control the machines.

Sunak for his part, agreed with Musk’s intimation that Hollywood stories concerning AI, such as The Terminator, appeared to be foundation points for the basis of both men’s views on the technology. “All these movies with the same plot fundamentally all end with the person turning it off,” quipped Sunak.

It’s unclear what technology the two men were referring to. Most AI systems created in the past decade would ostensibly be resistant to attempts at “turning it off” via a single physical switch due to the nature of distributed and cloud computing and server technologies.

Suleyman, who was also in attendance at the U.K. AI Summit, later dismissed Musk’s commentary as pedestrian during an interview with the BBC’s Question Time.

Per the interview, Suleyman asserted that:

“This is why we need an impartial, independent assessment of the trajectory of this technology. [Elon Musk is] not an AI scientist. He owns a small AI company. He has many other companies. His expertise is more in space and cars.”

Suleyman isn’t the first AI expert or CEO to question Musk’s grasp on AI at the scientific level. In 2022 NYU computer science professor and best-selling author Gary Marcus and Vivek Wadha, a distinguished fellow at both Carnegie Mellon and Harvard, challenged Musk’s assertion that “AGI,” artificial general intelligence, would be realized by 2029.

The two experts offered Musk a wager in the amount of $500,000 which would pay off if AGI was realized before the 2029 deadline. To the best of our knowledge, Musk has yet to acknowledge or respond to the proposed wager.

AGI is a nebulous concept with no agreed-upon benchmarks or measurement standards for achieving. The basic premise of the idea is that, one day, due to currently unknowable technological follow-on effects, AI technology will become capable of performing any task requiring intelligence.

While some so-called experts believe that AGI, or at least sentient AI, may already exist, many other experts working in the field assert that current systems aren’t as intelligent or capable as humans or other animals due to their reliance on training, programming, procedure, and guardrails.

UK Government