A draft regulatory framework for crypto assets will be ready in the United Kingdom early next year, a Treasury official promised at City & Financial Global’s Tokenisation Summit in London on Nov. 21.

Some regulations were expected months earlier, but a general election overturned those plans along with the Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Keir Starmer’s Labour government, which took office on July 5, will present the regulations.

A comprehensive framework

Economic Secretary to the Treasury Tulip Siddiq said the regulations would cover stablecoins and staking services, as well as cryptocurrency, Bloomberg reported . Siddiq said:

“Doing everything in a single phase is simpler and it just makes more sense.”

Stablecoin’s use cases do not make it a good fit for existing payment services regulation, Siddiq said. Stablecoin legislation has been in the works since the release of a suite of discussion papers in October 2023 but was never expected earlier than 2025.

The crypto industry would prefer that staking not be designated as a “collective investment scheme,” as that would bring with it additional restrictions. Siddiq said at the summit:

“For me, it doesn’t make sense for staking services to have this treatment. The government intends to proceed with removing this legal uncertainty accordingly.”

The UK needs to get a grip on crypto

The former Conservative government expressed the ambition to make the United Kingdom a cryptocurrency hub , but it has been seen as a challenging regulatory environment. Blame for that perception is often placed on the Financial Conduct Authority, a regulator independent of the government.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation will come into full force by the end of the year. With the continent offering regulatory certainty and the United States’ forthcoming President-elect Donald Trump administration being viewed as pro-crypto, the UK looks less attractive to the multibillion-dollar crypto industry.

The former government had promised new crypto regulations in July, but that did not occur. So far, the Labour government’s only attempt at crypto regulation has been a bill proposed in September to clarify the legal status of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptocurrency and carbon credits by declaring them property .

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