I've noticed a number of crypto headlines recently tentatively celebrating the inauguration of Rishi Sunak as the new British Prime Minister because of his past pro-crypto comments.
Here's an example from City A.M.
The (rather loose) evidence for the celebratory tones is because back in April this year Sunak commented that he wanted to make the U.K. a global crypto hub, but besides that there is little hard evidence that he is pro Bitcoin or in favour of any other decentralised crypto projects.
So there is something of a cautionary debate in other news outlets over whether Rishi is going to take the UK down the El Salvador route of incorporating Bitcoin (for example) into the UK's national reserves or go down the route of establishing a UK CBDC, dubbed 'Britcoin'.
It'll probably be Britcoin over Bitcoin!
There are two main reasons I see this...
Firstly Rishi Sunak is head of the Conservative Party, and while he is young most in the party are old and, well, conservative, and some are even literally 'old money', and the Tory voter base are older people.
There is no way he is going to get a member, let alone a party mandate to make Bitcoin part of the National Currency Reserve thus subjecting the value of the pound and everyone's pensions and investment values to the volatility of Bitcoin.
Secondly, all you have to do is have a quick look at his father in-laws company, Infosys, the second largest tech company in India which is currently working to implement blockchain technologies with private companies and governments around the world, with a focus on transparency and traceability....
So you can imagine the kind of crypto project Rishi is envisioning given the circles that he moves in - and the Infosys approach to blockchain as got 'we can set up a CBDC for you' written all over it.
Now I'm not suggesting Rishi is going to get his father in law's company to set up the UK's digital pound, but I imagine there'll be a deal of consulting and outsourcing going on now that we've had Brexit.
But one thing I think is VERY unlikely is that Britain's going to become a global hub for Bitcoin and other decentralised cryptocurrencies, not with Rishi's positioning between old-conservatives and Corporate tech!