UK lawmakers form crypto advocacy group for parliament: report

Lisa Cameron, a member of parliament for the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, is reportedly chairing a lobbying group aimed at promoting crypto-related legislation in government.

According to a Friday report from the Financial Times, members of parliament as well as members of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom launched the Crypto and Digital Assets Group to ensure rules for the crypto industry in the U.K. “support innovation” as of last week. The cross-party group aims to protect investors from financial crimes, including token scams or offerings from regulated companies.

“We are at a crucial time for the sector as global policymakers are also now reviewing their approach to crypto and how it should be regulated,” said Cameron.

The country’s self-regulating trade group for the crypto industry, CryptoUK, reportedly backed the creation of the advocacy group. According to CryptoUK executive director Ian Taylor, the group intends to spend more than $67,000 in 2022 to support the Crypto and Digital Assets Group, with a focus on “education, education, education” around crypto assets.

In 2021, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority issued numerous warnings to retail investors, advising them of the potential risk of dealing with crypto firms not yet registered with the country’s financial watchdog. The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority, the country’s independent advertising regulator, also removed advertisements from crypto firms including Coinbase and Kraken.

Related: Bank of England governor issues crypto investment warning

The seemingly growing concern over crypto scams and illicit transactions in the U.K. comes as a report from Chainalysis showed scammers received $7.8 billion in crypto stolen from victims over 2021, of which more than $2.8 billion came from rug pulls. Chainalysis attributed the prevalence of rug pulls to the “hype around the space” in addition to the lack of code audits for certain DeFi projects.