On Friday 9th December 2022 the U.K. government announced some significant [reforms to change regulations](https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/financial-services-the-edinburgh-reforms) (read deregulate) around the Financial Services Sector, to offer clarity on what's changed since Britain left the E.U. 

A significant chunk of this announcement referred to introducing new regulations for crypto assets and stable coins (honestly, the section was given more time than how all of this relates to our carbon-zero target):


![Screenshot 2022-12-10 at 13.11.18.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/revisesociology/23u6WTkJygT8tHTzL8SgtiaDcwV13mta8MoxuZRDhQxEHafj9j7SCRj7wXM1Xp42myGHP.png)

Things are very much in the consultation phase but there's several big hitters in there such as setting up a 'safe regulatory environment for stablecoins' - the government is quite keen it seems to set up a framework that allows for these to be used to make payments. 

Maybe slightly terrifying is bullet point one - consulting is going to start on setting up a UK CBDC - which is going to potentially pave the way for a highly centralised digital pound and all the monitoring that goes along with that. 

Bullet point two opens up the possibility for Fund Managers to offer crypto assets in their portfolios - and I guess that's going to have the most impact on crypto prices as it makes it easer for large investment funds to buy Bitcoin and so on for their customers. 

And there's even a Sandbox being proposed - meaning that by 2023 we'll have a testnet up and running for all how of this is going to work - and that's some serious shit right there given how many users could be integrated into this thing. 

### A double edged sword but potentially positive

While I think the CBDC is the government's priority there's nothing inherently anti classic-crypto in this announcement - in fact it seems that at the same time as opening up the long game towards decentralisation the government is also keen to make it easier for people and businesses in the UK to invest in and use crypto. 

And at the end of the day I think a little regulatory clarity may be a good thing.