The London-based cryptocurrency issuer and blockchain host Ripple Labs held a “U.K. Crypto Policy Summit” on June 18, featuring a government presentation led by the Chancellor of The Exchequer, and after the British Treasury published its Crypto Assets Order on April 29. U.K. authorities are playing the U.S. Administration’s cryptocurrency game, focusing on U.S. dollar stablecoins, and planning to play it better: The headline of Ripple’s June 20 release on the summit was “Why Ripple Thinks London Can Become the Main Crypto Powerhouse in the West.”
The British intend to build a new dollar stablecoin empire modeled on the Eurodollar market London created from the 1950s and 1960s, to the point that in 1978 it was reported that more than 80% of all U.S. dollar currency printed, was created in London or “London offshore” tax havens like the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Bermuda, the Channel Islands, Luxembourg, etc. President John F. Kennedy was afraid Eurodollars were damaging America’s balance of payments. JFK commented in 1962: “It’s an insane system to have all these dollars floating around [Europe] which can be exchanged for gold”—for which the U.S. gold reserve was obligated.
By the 1970s the U.S. dollar had been made the London dollar, and FDR’s Bretton Woods gold-reserve monetary system had been pulled down.
The Ripple release reported: “One of Ripple’s most pointed recommendations is to codify the U.K.’s emerging openness to overseas stablecoins like USDC and USDT [the dollar stablecoins issued by Circle and Tether respectively—ed.]. This would position London in direct contrast to the EU’s MiCA framework, which limits circulation to locally issued assets.
“According to policy materials shared at the summit, embracing foreign-based coins would give the U.K. a post-Brexit edge and recreate the kind of offshore liquidity markets seen in the Eurodollar boom of the 1950s.”
