coindesk.com
The U.K. Government was not convinced that there would have been demand for a non-fungible token (NFT) issued by the Royal Mint, Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said in a Treasury Committee meeting on Wednesday.
Initially, the Royal Mint in April 2022 was tasked by then-Finance Minister, now Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to create a NFT. The government on Monday, however, announced that it decided to drop the highly anticipated project.
"I think it's a question of demand," Hunt said. "I think we always want to be at the cutting edge in the U.K., in terms of new technology, but the world has changed significantly since then and we're not convinced that the demand is going to be there in the same way."
The NFT space, which attracted a good deal of celebrity participation and endorsements alongside much media attention, peaked in January 2022 with $5 billion in global sales on some days, according to blockchain data tracker CryptoSlam. The most recent 24-hour sales data is just $44.3 million.
The U.K. government to this point has publicly been undeterred by the crypto winter, continuing to insist its crypto hub ambitions remain.