coindesk.com
Then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the UK’s ambitions to be a “global cryptoasset hub” all the way back in 2022. Since then, that goal has seemed more like a distant aspiration rather than actuality. But several recent announcements suggest the gap between fantasy and reality might finally be narrowing.
Within days of each other, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Bank of England have taken major regulatory steps toward proving that the UK is serious about that goal, setting out rules designed to create a workable climate for both consumer and institutional crypto adoption.
The FCA finalized their crypto rules last month, offering guidance for crypto firms’ capital requirements, admissions and disclosures, and the wider conduct framework. Separately, the Bank of England has scrapped the previously proposed limits imposed on holdings of fiat-pegged stablecoins, as well as lowering the reserve requirement issuers must hold at the central bank from 40% to 30%.
Together, they are the clearest signal yet that the UK intends to build a leading crypto regime rather than simply talking about it.
Chet Shah is the CEO of Wirex Limited, a FCA-regulated fintech firm based in London.
A reputation earned the hard way
It's no secret that the UK's crypto industry has lagged behind on the global stage for the past few years. The Bank of England’s earlier stablecoin proposals, set out in November 2025, faced strong industry backlash for being too restrictive to support growth. Those plans included restricting individuals to holding no more than £20,000 of systemic sterling stablecoins, while businesses were capped at £10 million. Many argued that this was too conservative to allow stablecoins to be utilized at scale, and would fundamentally hold back the UK’s competitiveness.
Prior to that, the FCA’s approach to crypto regulation was widely regarded as overly cautious, with unclear rules on how firms should operate, slow authorization times, and unworkable FinProm rules, which dictate how financial products and services can be marketed toward UK consumers.
More recently, the UK crypto sector faced another hurdle: several major financial institutions have restricted or blocked customer transactions to all crypto exchanges, citing concerns over fraud and money laundering, despite many of those exchanges already being regulated by the FCA. Many critics believe this has created another unnecessary barrier to the UK’s competition and innovation
Benchmarking against other jurisdictions
Whilst the UK has dragged its feet, global stablecoin adoption has grown astronomically, with the number of unique holders of non-dollar stablecoins having grown 30x between January 2023 and February 2026, according to Visa and Dune’s Beyond Dollarization report. Most of this activity is driven by real-world payments, settlement and payroll, not speculation.
Other jurisdictions recognized the opportunity presented by stablecoins some time ago and are well on their way to implementing the kind of regulatory certainty that enables growth. The EU’s MiCA framework began with stablecoin-specific rules, seeing Euro stablecoin transfer volume growing from $270 million to $8 billion a month in the period that followed. The US has since followed with the GENIUS Act, replacing a patchwork of state and federal guidance with enforceable standards for reserve assets, redemption rights, disclosures and custody.