The UK's Bitcoin problem - driving business overseas! | Bitcoin News by CoinCorner

Transcript

Welcome back to Bitcoin News, brought to you by CoinCorner. I'm your host, Alex Glasse. Now, let's get straight into this week's top stories.

It's sideways chop this week for Bitcoin's price as Trump finally rolls out his global tariff plan. The announcement this week will impose a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the US, with a higher rate for so-called 'worst offender' countries - which, for China, is as high as 54%. It's unknown exactly what the economic impact will be for all the different nations involved, but it's arguably the biggest change to global trade in 100 years.

Typically, as with any big change, the announcement caused markets to sell off - with Bitcoin leading the way, dropping by around 7%. But the positive news is that there is now clarity, and hopefully we can move away from the recent uncertainty that's been plaguing markets.

Now, looking past the price action and tariff turmoil, here in the UK things are not looking too good when it comes to Bitcoin adoption and innovation. Even as institutional adoption advances across the globe, it's suggested that due to poor policy, the UK is falling behind.

In this article written by Susie Violet Ward, CEO of Bitcoin Policy UK, she breaks down exactly how, despite the UK's proud history of excellence and innovation, its regulatory approach to Bitcoin undermines that position. The Financial Conduct Authority is damaging the UK's competitiveness in digital finance. Despite being tasked with ensuring financial stability, the FCA instead has become a barrier to innovation, resulting in businesses being driven out of the UK due to regulatory hostility - or simply deciding that the cost of compliance with poorly thought-out regulation is too high.

As a result, UK institutions are increasingly hesitant to allocate to the best-performing asset of the decade. But at the same time, institutions and governments across the world are increasing their exposure to Bitcoin every day. The real risk to the UK is not that Bitcoin will fail, but that it will succeed elsewhere and leave UK institutions scrambling to catch up.

If the UK wants to remain a serious player in global finance, it needs to adapt - before the next wave of innovation settles elsewhere. But sadly, also this week, the FCA have announced that they intend on creating new, more stringent rules for crypto firms to become registered with them. And currently, of 368 applications, only 51 firms have been approved.

The new framework is yet to be finalised, but Matthew Long, Director of Payments and Digital Assets at the FCA, suggested that even firms that have secured an existing licence will need to start a fresh process to secure approval from the FCA.

Now, speaking of the FCA crypto registration - this week, BlackRock managed to secure the sought-after approval. BlackRock will now be able to arrange the execution of transactions in crypto assets to support ETP subscriptions and redemptions between issuers and authorised participants in the UK.

Now, this is an interesting move from the world's largest asset manager, as it shows their continued commitment to promoting Bitcoin and crypto worldwide following the success of their Bitcoin ETF in the US. And this week, CEO Larry Fink even said that decentralised finance is an extraordinary innovation. It makes markets faster, cheaper, and more transparent. Yet that same innovation could undermine America's economic advantage if investors begin seeing Bitcoin as a safer bet than the US dollar.

More prominent figures showing support for Bitcoin this week are the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are merging their firm, American Data Sensors, with Hut 8 - a publicly traded Bitcoin miner - to form a new Bitcoin mining company called American Bitcoin. From this merger, the Trump brothers will hold a 20% stake, with Hut 8 owning the remaining 80%. The deal brings 61,000 Bitcoin mining machines from Hut 8 into American Bitcoin, and the company plans to build its own Bitcoin reserve by retaining mined coins.

The Trump family really appears to be taking this asset seriously - ever since President Donald Trump established the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve a few weeks ago. And this latest news comes just a week after the Bitcoin treasury company MetaPlanet appointed Eric Trump to their board of advisers.

Also this week, the struggling video game retailer GameStop completed their sale of $1.5 billion of convertible senior notes, which they intend on using to buy Bitcoin. After the initial announcement last week that they were raising $1.3 billion, the offering was oversubscribed, providing them with an additional $200 million - and a total of $1.4848 billion after fees.

A Bitcoin purchase is yet to be announced, but the company were already sitting on $4.7 billion in cash, so this new injection of capital makes you wonder: could a huge purchase be in the pipeline?

Exciting as this is, late last week - after the company announced their plans to raise capital - GameStop's short sale volume hit the highest level in nine months, close to the levels reached in 2021 when the stock experienced its iconic short squeeze, leading to hedge funds making significant losses after shorting the stock.

Now, due to this recent short sale volume, the New York Stock Exchange was actually forced to impose a short sale restriction, which is triggered when any stock drops by over 10% from the previous day. Chaotic as this stock tends to be, this recent line of events has many speculating: could there be another short squeeze on the horizon, especially if this new Bitcoin strategy pays off?

Now, for our final story: the Human Rights Foundation has donated 10 Bitcoin, worth $850,000, to fund Bitcoin development. The grant aims to support open-source Bitcoin development, mining decentralisation, privacy tools, and educational initiatives for individuals living under authoritarian regimes - with a focus on Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Following this, the hope is to further promote internet freedom and decentralised communications, ensuring that all - including dissidents - can connect, communicate, organise, and transact without censorship.

Since its launch in 2020, the Human Rights Foundation's Bitcoin Development Fund has distributed more than $7 million worth of Bitcoin to 284 projects in 62 countries. And if you're interested in donating to the cause, I'll leave a link down below in the description - it'll take you straight there.

But I'm afraid that is all we have for you today. If you got value from the video, please drop a like down below and make sure you subscribe so you never miss an update of Bitcoin News.