Rishi Sunak Is Now British Prime Minister – What This Means For Crypto

Rishi Sunak, a Southampton-born British politician, is the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He replaced Liz Truss who resigned from her position after just 44 days in public service.

The newly installed prime minister has compiled quite a resume, having served as Chancellor of Exchequer from 2020 to 2022 and Secretary to the Treasury from 2019 to 2020. Since 2015, he has been a Member of Parliament for Richmond (Yorks).

Recognized as a crypto-friendly government official, Rishi Sunak has always been vocal about his desire to make his country a global hub for crypto.

Now that he is already in office, the crypto space awaits the realization of plans and programs he has announced before to put the UK in the global map as far as mass adoption of cryptocurrencies is concerned.

Rishi Sunak Now The Hope Of Millions Of Crypto Owners In UK

The UK has witnessed a huge growth in crypto adoption over the last few years. In fact, the 1.5 million owners of cryptocurrencies in the country in 2018 increased by 650% in 2021, ballooning to nearly 10 million.

In terms of active use of crypto service provider platforms, there were 100,000 daily users for Coinbase in the UK last year. Binance and eToro were also among the top performing cryptocurrency-focused firms in the country.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Image: BizzBuzz

Bitcoin (42.8%), Ethereum (32.9%), Ripple (17.4), Dogecoin (16.9%) and Solana (15.1%) were the top five digital currencies owned by holders of the asset class in the country.

The territory ranks 11th out of 27 nations in terms of BTC ownership. There are 3.3 million Bitcoin owners in United Kingdom who will surely keep track of Sunak’s plans and actions to turn their nation into a global hub for technologies that focus on cryptocurrencies.

UK Already In The Right Direction

According to a report released by Chainalysis, the UK leads all countries in Europe in terms of value of cryptocurrency transactions.

Last year, the total value of transactions that involved digital currencies in the country reached £123 billion – enough to surpass the total amount of France, Germany and Netherlands combined. 

It has also been observed that a lot of BTC owners trade their coins instead of just holding them, indicating there is high activity numbers for Bitcoin-related transactions in UK.

As it turns out, the country is already primed for being a major crypto asset hub. With Rishi Sunak now serving as prime minister, he now has more room to operate to make this dream come true.

The British government had already laid out some of the groundwork, including making stablecoins as legal forms of payment for goods and services within the UK.

This, according to the 42-year-old investment banker-turned-politician Rishi Sunak, is also part of the plan to make sure that their “financial services industry is always at the forefront of technology and innovation.”

The blockchain community is hopeful that Sunak’s election will usher in a fundamental transformation in the way we think about digital currency.

Crypto total market cap at $947 billion on the daily chart | Featured image from AFP, Chart: TradingView.com