Description:
The Future of Digital Assets in the UK Speakers: Michael Ippolito, Nigel Farage MP This is a panel from DAS London 2025.
Transcript:
Hi everyone. I know we've got the session before lunch, but how is people that energy out there? Feeling good. >> Exactly. Yeah, >> pretty good. >> Uh Nigel, I'm not sure you need much introduction, but uh I guess the one question on my mind is, am I speaking to the future prime minister? Can you tell me that? >> Well, politics is going through quite a revolution um in our country at the moment. We've kind of been used to two-party politics uh and it's been there for a long time. In fact, since the end of the First World War, it's either been Labor or Conservative governments. So, no third party has come along from nowhere and done what we've done. Um, is this a reflection of my own incredible charisma, or skills, track record, or is it that I'm up against a bunch of absolutely useless, the worst political leaders we've ever seen in our lives? Maybe it's a bit of both, but nothing works anymore. M we pay I mean our tax burden is the highest it's been since the end of World War II. Uh law and order in London is in decline. Uh GDP per capita consistently falls quarter on quarter. Nothing is working. Um and into the bargain if you criticize too much as a result of the online safety act you'll probably get a knock on the door from the police. So people are looking for a fresh alternative. I've been in politics a long time. I'm in European Parliament for over 20 years. Uh but I I don't regard myself as a politician. I still regard myself much more as a businessman who's in politics because things need fixing. So are you talking to the next prime minister? >> I think so. Yes. Ah that's amazing. Well, you know, I actually it's I love that you just said you think of yourself more as a businessman. And you know, I'm sure many people have heard you talk and know your opinions on uh you know, some domestic politics stuff, but many people probably don't know that you spent a long time trading commodities and you have a financial background. I thought this audience might be interested to know a little bit more about that. >> Yeah. Well, my grandfather was a stock broker for over half a century. My father was a stock broker for over half a century. And I as I was about to leave school and sort of the time you go on to college or whatever, uh Margaret Thatcher got elected, got rid of exchange controls, the financial services industry started to boom. Uh there was a thing called the Yepy that appeared. Young people earning lots of money, sports cars, pretty girls. So I skipped college and came and came straight into London and I worked on the London Metal Exchange dealing in copper, aluminium if you're British, aluminum if you're American, uh, lead, zinc, tin, nickel, did a bit of precious as well. And I spent 20 years >> broking, trading commodities, working with customers in America, the Far East, South America, um, and you know, obviously trading currencies at the same time. And what got me into politics was the European Union, >> this centralized, overregulated, um, frankly scam is how I saw it. Um, I got into politics because I believed in national sovereignty. I believed we should shape our own future. Um, and history suggests that when Britain is free to do things, it does it quite well. So that was the transition. >> That was the transition from business into politics. Um, but I've always kept my hand in. You know, I still I still pump the markets for a bit of fun. Um, you've got to, haven't we really? Um, so I still punt the markets a bit. Um, I'm still very much in touch with people working in business and I, it's very interesting that financial services in Britain, you know, you could look at the city of London and think, well, it's really old-fashioned and traditional and it's always had its customs, but it's always thrived through innovation. It's been brilliant at developing new products over the centuries. And yet right now we're in a situation where we have an FCA who seem to be there not necessarily protecting anybody overregulating financial services such we're losing you know reinsurance businesses off to Bermuda etc. Um and this whole area of digital assets and crypto just isn't being talked about at all. Uh we've got no regulated market. You see regulation, you need some regulation, a sensible level of regulation, not the ludicrous regulation we now have have on equities and elsewhere. Um, and so it was really, I guess, the reason that the reason that I was the first prominent uh person in British politics, to adopt crypto, to talk about crypto, to try and legitimize crypto, which was in 2020. Now a lot of you in this room will think I'm a late comer but you know compared to politicians I was there very much earlier is I could see this is the way it was going and one of the reasons I'm here today is my deep frustration that despite one speech by Richie Sunnac on this space no you know the government of the day the conservatives the government of today the Labor party have done nothing in this area so I've combined my trading background with my political background and we have if you look at the reform UK website we've actually published a digital assets and crypto bill which if we win the next general election will get put into law very very quickly and we will have a sensible we will effectively bring crypto in from the cold. So my life is a combination of politics, of business and actually I think they work pretty well handin glove. >> I completely agree and it's very rare that you get to generally you know when you ask a politician what do you think about regulation it's a safe bet to say more regulation. That's what we need. You very rarely get to ask a politician who has the background that you do. So can we actually you know I want to end with this word sovereignty that you just brought up. I think it's a really powerful word when it comes to crypto. But can we zoom back in and talk about your long career trading commodities? What was your view around regulation then? Because there's this idea that maybe markets are a little bit too regulated, but you saw it firsthand. So just >> Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, when I started, you could put a brass plaque outside your front door and say commodity broker >> and there were a few cowboys around. So look, I think a degree of regulation that gives consumers confidence is what you need. I saw by the time I left the city in 2004, I saw compliance departments getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and effectively their job was to stop you doing business, to stop you innovating. So overregulation is a curse. Nobody um there's nobody in the Labor government with any idea of business at all. Least of all the chancellor, Rachel from accounts. I mean, >> what do you really think, N? It's so an opinion out of you. >> Sorry. I'm rather shy. I'm very shy. I'm sorry. Um, they haven't got a clue. They haven't got a clue. And financial services is Britain's biggest industry. And it's not all whiz kids in the city of London or Canary Warf. It's back offices in Cardiff, in Edinburgh, in Bristol, all around the country. And it's been completely neglected >> by both the last government and by this government. and I want to regenerate it. I want to make London back to being a great trading center and that includes this space as well. >> Let's talk about some specific examples here as well because I think when it comes to regulation, people tend to approach it ideologically. You're either for regulation or you're against, but you saw so many examples. What >> Well, yeah, as I say, I mean, in ' 86, you could call yourself a commodity broker. There was no exam. There was no regulation at all other than who held the money. Um, yeah, I saw it go I I saw it go massively over the top. A lot of that was because we were in the globalist European Union. >> Yeah. >> Which is the most heavily regulated marketplace on Earth, which is why it's going down the tubes, frankly. So, yeah, I'm all for appropriate regulation, but the next British government needs to deregulate, deregulate financial services, deregulate small business, deregulate entrepreneurship. Um and we have to get we have to get the tax burden right because at the moment the flight of capital the flight of brains that is happening from this country is frankly disastrous. Um and that I'm also trying to address, you know, with the idea of of a Britannia card which you can buy and come back and get tax status in this country rather than heading off to Dubai or Milan or you know all the other jurisdictions people are heading to. >> So can you you know because so many times I bet many people in this room sit around and wonder hey it would be so easy to solve these problems right markets are overregulated why don't the politicians just allow us to do this? you have more access than anyone in this room. Take us inside what those conversations are actually like when we're talking about something like crypto. Are people excited about that? We're told that people are excited. What is it actually like on the ground? >> I honestly believe that if you spoke to most people in parliament, I'll be there this afternoon. Um I won't be welcome, but I'll be there this afternoon. They can't stand me. But it's good to be judged by your enemies in life. if I think that if you had this conversation with 95% of current regulators in the House of Commons or the House of Lords, you may as well be speaking Swahili to them. They don't know anything about the space. They don't want to know anything about the space. And I'm sorry to say the same thing has gone for the Bank of England. You know, the governor of the Bank of England has been saying repeatedly over the last few years, you know, if you invest in crypto, you stand to lose all your money, etc. So it' blow me down if I wasn't walking through the door of his office three weeks ago to have a meeting with him with my colleague Richard Ty uh just after he'd said the week before that there should be a limit I mean a derisory limit on the amount of stable coins any individual should hold. Now, I was on best behavior. I promise you. I only called him a dinosaur once, but I said, "This is frankly ridiculous." >> You know, stable coin. They're here. They're real. It's not going away. He said it was under review. And I'm pleased to say one week after I went to meet the governor, one week after I was there, he's removed the limit on the number of stable coins an individual can hold. And I would say this to all of you in this room in this industry. Whether you like or dislike many of the political positions that I've taken over the course of the last three decades is frankly irrelevant. When it comes to your industry, when it comes to growth in this industry, then I am your champion and I do make things happen and I do make things change and I will go on doing so. That's very refreshing to hear. I I you know, I'm just so genuinely curious, you know, is it an ideological bent, you know, is it the is it the case that many people over here want all of this to happen? What is the the core? Well, like so many things, the gap between those in charge and the real country, you know, despite I mean, I remember when I came out publicly saying that actually people should hold crypto as part of their portfolio. And that was in 2020. >> And I said, look, this is here to stay. It's a fascinating space. And I liked it because whilst I'd campaigned for national sovereignty for all those years, here is personal sovereignty. You know, you've got your own money. You're in charge. And by the way, and we'll come to this in a minute, there's a big difference between digital assets and digital ID that K star wants for us. >> Can we just talk about that now? Actually, can you make that distinction between digital assets and digital identification? >> Well, digital ID that the prime minister, our authoritarian prime minister wants to bring in um would basically mean that the state would be in control of everything. It would be in control of your vaccine status and decide whether you were free to leave your front door or not. You think I'm joking? We had this during the lockdowns. Uh it would be in control of your money and I would see it. And by the way, I did ask the governor of the Bank of England three weeks ago, where are you with central bank digital currencies? And it's still a work in progress. All right. I don't want digital ID to control every piece of income and expenditure. Don't forget, I am the most famous case of being debanked in this country. They closed me down in 2023, but they'd bitten off more than I could chew because I got rid of the chief executive, which I was very, very pleased with. with digital ID controlled by a government. I mean, let's face it, it would be debanking, potentially debanking on a massive, massive scale. So, I'm going to f and I've actually said, and I'll say it again, I'd rather go to prison than have digital ID and total state control over my life and over my money. And I mean that. I'm going to fight this and we are going to win. All right. >> So, we're kind of arriving at this idea of sovereignty. And actually on the debanking point, I I was just describing to someone off stage actually when I talk about debanking to people who aren't in this industry, I can hear myself sounding like a conspiracy theorist. You're like the banks, they have this plot and they're doing this and I hear myself, but this actually happened to you. Well, it was the thing is I mean to admit publicly you've been debanked is a humiliation. It's shameful. It probably will damage how your family think about you, how your business partners will think about you. It may well affect your future credit rating. So, people who have been debanked tend not to say so. And when I got the internal bank report on me, the last sentence was, "He'll probably be too embarrassed to go public that we've debanked him." Well, of course, they picked on the wrong bloke, couldn't they? Um, and when I said I've been debanked and I went to 10 other bigname banks, all of whom refused to give me an account, I must admit there was a feeling of fear because without a bank account, you can't function. It's as vital as as electricity and water coming into your home. But the effect of me saying I'd been debanked was a bit like bit like coming out really. Um and and suddenly lots of other voices popped up of people who'd suffered the same humiliation. And we learned that the banks were debanking people in whole sectors, whole industries. Anyone involved with the gun trade, anyone involved with the shooting club, anyone involved with oil or gas exploration, even people working in the sector were finding themselves refused, finding themselves debanked. um anyone that spoke out against DEI or any of the other absolute lunaces that seem to have gripped our public and private sectors were being debanked and digital ID will allow people to do that on a much much bigger scale. So it's got to be fought. It's got to be fought. But I, you know, ultimately as back to where I started, you know, the governor confirmed that central bank digital currencies are on the agenda. And that I think would be the ultimate the ultimate authoritarian nightmare literally for every single one of us. And digital ID from Stararma is a step in that direction. It haven't been confirmed to me that it's still on the agenda and we have to stop this stuff. What we're talking about in this room is the very opposite of all of those things. It's about us having individual personal sovereignty, individual control over our lives and over our money. And that's why I find it so appealing. >> How likely do you think is the what is the likelihood of a CBDC happening and every once in a while I'll see these papers coming out of the ECB and it's why Bitcoin is still risky and why a CBDC would be much safer. Yeah. So talk to us about the view on the ground. How likely is this? >> Yeah. I mean, of course, the European Union would love a CBDC, you know, and Starmer, of course, would much rather we were still in the European Union. Um, but we're not mercifully. Um, I they will continue work on CBDC's, but if we can defeat digital ID, then I think that will slow the whole process in its tracks. And if and when we win the next election, we will automatically shut down the CBDC project. Make all those working on it say very sorry chaps, you're out of work. We will stop it overnight. If we don't succeed and if he does get digital ID through, how far away are we? We're still probably five years away, >> four or five years away. But they are actively working on it. It's got to be stopped. So, let's say, you know, we wave a magic wand and uh you are the next prime minister of the UK. This be something I can tell the old grandkids uh get to do that. Um what would you do? What would your You already have an actual uh uh bill that you're working on, a draft, right, for >> So, we've got the digital assets in crypto bill that's ready to go. We've got our Britannia card to welcome back the nondoms who fled, you know, and oh, you know, aren't they awful? They're rich. Actually, these people invest huge amounts of money in Britain and create loads of jobs. Equally, we got to get back the young 30some entrepreneurs. But as with everything, the complexity of politics is that one thing doesn't work on its own because it's conjoined with other things. And we won't get a flood black to London until we deal with law and order. >> No one wears I mean there's probably quite a few of you here not from London. You know, if you want to go out tonight in Mayfair or Chelsea, don't wear a watch or don't wear jewelry. I can't even believe I'm saying that. I wouldn't. Five years ago, that would not have even been a conversation. But suddenly it is. So part of getting the wealth creators and entrepreneurs back is changing poling. Sort of a Rudy Giuliani style poling for London I think is very badly needed. Um and the other point about this industry and if we extend out to data centers, AI and crypto itself, of course, the one thing that it absolutely needs is lots and lots of dependable, affordable energy. But of course, we now have the highest industrial energy prices in the world. On bad days, we're actually importing up to 25% of our electricity >> from Norway, from Belgium, from the Netherlands because we've we've we we've taken ourselves down a subsidy route, a net zero route. We've turned our backs on all the resources we still have in this country. So again you know we can send all the signals to this industry by passing that bill but equally we have to create the other conditions yeah >> to make it work properly. So and that's why it is complex. It's why you can't just wave a magic wand and make everything fantastic overnight. But what you can do to an industry is to say this is the direction we're going in. And how interesting, you know, whilst the Financial Times laughs at me and no doubt will condemn this conference and whilst the Bank of England's been trying to pretend this world's not happening, despite all of that and all the negativity in the press, one in four under 30s in Britain already owns a digital asset of some kind. And one in seven of the entire population already owns crypto in some form. So despite everything, it's happening in this country anyway. >> Really interesting. >> It's fascinating. I uh I told you this anecdote uh backstage, but there is a uh someone who works at a big bulge bracket in the United States and they do a poll to their incoming analysts about what commercial bank account do you use and only in the last couple of years has the most popular category been other because they don't have Bank of America, JP Morgan or anything like that. And that's I mean how much of an age and kind of demographic sh I think sometimes the young people have adopted crypto a little bit quicker than our older counterparts. >> Oh look that's natural. I mean you know to a lot of people over 40 or 50 they are never going to have a digital wallet. It's never going to happen. It's not their world. uh if they want to get involved in this space and have exposure to this space, well, I guess that's that explains why Michael Sailor, you know, and the Bitcoin treasury concept has done so well because you just buy, you know, buy and sell a share. And I guess that'll come to London as well because I can't see ETFs coming to London anytime soon, which is madness. I mean, the the the US exchange ETFs hit 100 billion more quickly than any other ETF that has ever been launched. So, you know, yeah, there is an age that clearly there is a big big age gap, but there are other ways that older people who are not so techsavvy can get involved. >> You know, part of the reason why we've been doing this conference in London for so long is London is a historic financial hub. Um, and as you rightly point out, it has a long history of innovation when it comes to financial products, financial services, etc. And you know what I've been hearing a little bit so far in this conference uh is that we're worried that the UK the UK might miss the boat when it comes to financial assets. >> Well, that's what I said to the governor the other week. We're being left behind. Come on, let's get with it. You know, um it obviously gingered him up a little bit because we got what we got on stable coins. But yeah, you know, I mean, equally the equity markets being crashed, the IPOs are falling off a cliff. Um, as I as I mentioned already, much of our reinsurance business have now relocated to the Bahamas and elsewhere. Uh, and we're falling rapidly behind. Um, and in the 80s, of course, you know, the big bang of the mid late 80s. Um, and that's worth mentioning because today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Margaret Thatcher. And love her or not, she broke up the old city of London. you know, we got massive foreign investment coming in. Um, and and and we really made London the world's leading center. That was a I mean, big bang. If ever you want to have a look at the example of sensible deregulation, getting rid of ridiculous market practices and customs uh leading to success. Big Bang in London in the 80s is one of them. And so, what we're going to need is Big Bang 2. uh with this space being right at the epicenter of what we want to try and do. >> And Nigel, for those who have less experience in parliament and uh government than you, it seems like there's a natural process for building up regulation, especially in financial markets. >> Boom happens, bust happens, we need to put in place regulation to make sure that that never happens again. And then you end up over the years with this kind of patchwork, very overregulated market. And it's hard to pinpoint that that's the problem. H how do we go the other way? What what is the process even just on a social level of how do we get some of this regulation out of the market? >> Yeah. Well, classic of politicians was Gordon Brown who was our chancellor for many years and regrettably our prime minister for a couple as well. He's the man that sold 50% of our gold reserves at $275 an ounce. What a genius. whilst at the same time putting in place massive changes in financial regulation. Um, and declaring no more boom and bust. It's all over. After thousands of years of human civilization through regulation, I've guaranteed no more boom and bust. And these are the kind of cretins, >> I'm afraid, that have been running us for too long. And you know we do need a marketplace people can trade product or they trust the marketplace will not run away we'll not steal their cash. All right, we need that. Every market needs, you know, well, when this was a fish market, as it was until about 40 years ago, when this was a fish market, there were some basic rules about what traders had to do. Very basic rules. Thereafter, free enterprise, price, competitiveness, quality, were all the things that the people who came into this market to buy fish >> chose. And it's exactly the same with financial products. At the minute, we got it all wrong. So, it's going to take and I can tell you this, it isn't just me in reform that's been in business. You know, Richard Ty has been in property development for many, many years. Zia Ysef is a very prominent front figure for the party. Well, he's been a tech entrepreneur who's done very, very well. We are, you know, of course, we've got people from other sectors, but we have a lot of men and women in senior positions in reform who've actually lived and worked in the real world of business. And we understand all economies will have good times and bad times. It's natural. That's never going to change. But let's just make sure there's a reasonable, sensible level of regs so that we can do the right thing. And by the way, talking of the gold that that that Brown sold, um we've currently got about5 billion pounds worth of seized Bitcoin. Um and she's planning to sell all of that. And what I'm urging is no, let's keep it. Let's have the Bank of England and let's start to build up and make Bitcoin a reserve category as well. >> So, you know, we're um we're taking a lot of shots here at some of the incumbents, which I think rightly so. But if I >> they take they take shots at me every day. Don't worry about that. Just a chance to get my own back. Uh well, here's a question that I've always had thought, you know, on the uh maybe a challenge of your job is your job is to represent your constituents. Well, your constituents might work in some of the industries that are going to get disrupted here. I mean, one thing that I will say for the banks, you know, the banks don't like crypto. Yeah, no We said we're going to disrupt the banks. Down with the banks. So, how do you manage uh representing your incumbents who may be disrupted here versus the innovation? Look, all change, all change has winners and losers. It's called life. It's called life. And if you have a system that is outdated, is not working, is in the case of the banks and debanking prejudicing. I mean, there are still hundreds of thousands of bank accounts closed in this country every single year. We have excessive anti-moneylaundering rules. the minute I mean if a bank sees an unusual pay payment it just closes you down all this to stop money laundering yet every high street in Britain now has a proliferation >> of Turkish barbers where they don't cut any hair they only take cash and there's a brand new Lamborghini parked out the back I mean you know the the the the AML regs are a sledgehammer to Mr. cut and for every hundred quid we're spending every hundred quid we're spending on regulation to seek money laundering we're only getting a pound back the other way. So yes our financial services industry in this country needs disrupting and there will be some losers but there'll be a lot more winners. >> All right so we've got about two more minutes here and I want to close down actually on this word sovereignty that we talked about. So, that's a critical word for anyone that's been involved in this industry. And I think, you know, while there are financial reasons to work in this industry, that's probably what tugs at people's heartstrings the most. And it's interesting to be speaking to you here in the UK because there have been a couple of, this is going to sound not related to crypto, but recent laws around hate speech and what you're allowed to say online and some of that policing. And I would love you to just connect, you know, what's going on with there to the importance of having financial freedom specifically. Help me connect these two ideas. Yeah, I mean, we've had the online safety act, which I mentioned uh not so long ago. So, you have to be 18 or over to to access a lot of content. No, not that sort of content. What an audience, but even news content, some of it you have to be aged aged over 18 to access. Um, and of course, the first hack has happened already as it was bound to do. Uh we have two-tier justice where certain sections of the country because of their religion are given more space and more freedom than the rest of it. Uh two-tier justice, two-tier policing, two-tier care uh has made a lot of people in Britain very very angry. There's a sense particularly from America I think that free speech in Britain really is under assault. I think it is too. Uh we got to fight back against that. But back to the point, I'll finish on the point of sovereignty. I campaigned for a quarter of a century for national sovereignty against the unelected globalist and in my view appalling institutions of the European Union. And we've won that battle. We've got back our sovereignty. We haven't used it very well, but we got it back. This campaign, and the reason I'm sitting here this morning talking to all of you, this is about individual sovereignty. This is about governments not controlling us. It's about banks not closing us down. It's about crypto being allowed back in from the cold. I mean, you transfer money every month from your bank account into crypto, they will close your account down. That's what's been happening in this country. Individual sovereignty is the freedom to be in control of and do what you want with your own money to make your own life decisions. And this is part of my next big battle which is to fight to win the next election in this country and to turn everything round by 180 degrees. >> Nigel, that's all the time we have. Thank you so much for the time. >> Thank you.
