21Shares Files Comment Letter on UK Consultation for Digital Assets

21Shares is pleased to announce that we have published a comment letter in response to the United Kingdom’s HM Treasury Consultation and Call for Evidence on “Future Financial services regulatory regime for cryptoassets.”  As noted in the comment letter (link below), 21Shares welcomes HM Treasury’s goal of achieving a proportionate and clear regulatory framework for digital assets in the United Kingdom (and of course, worldwide).

To that end, we are committed to advancing financial markets that are regulated, safe, and reliable for investors, including those that have invested in the cryptocurrency industry.  We believe that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are fundamental to the advancement of the world’s financial markets.  

In our Comment Letter, we emphasized that exchange traded products (ETPs) offer investors a secure and regulated vehicle for investments into the cryptocurrency asset class - those benefits include exchange-listed liquidity, insolvency and cybersecurity protections, segregated institutional custody, and the ability to purchase shares via a standard brokerage account.

We urged the UK government to apply similar rules to crypto-backed ETPs that the UK has already applied to other ETPs that track underlying assets (such as gold-backed ETPs).  Investors in crypto should benefit from the same protections that investors in other asset classes have access to.

Please find a link to 21Shares’ Comment Letter here.