Steven Bartlett calls for urgent movement on crypto regulation for London to retain global hub status

At this years Zebu Live (5-6 October), notable voices in the Web3 industry including Steven Bartlett, Diary of a CEO podcast host and BBC Dragon’s Den member, and Dr Lisa Cameron MP demanded for a heightened sense of urgency both from the government and regulatory bodies like the FCA, to create and update new jurisdiction to support the UK’s momentum as a global leader in crypto and blockchain innovation.

Founders, innovators and experts gathered at the event during London’s Web3 Week to discuss the innovation and evolution of systems and infrastructure of the crypto ecosystem, with a focus on making mainstream decentralisation a reality and transitioning industry language into the everyday vernacular.

A key outtake heard across several keynotes was the increasing demand for the UK government to commit to leaning into the opportunities within Web3 and create a regulatory landscape that can foster innovation at a crucial point of the digital revolution.

Steven Bartlett further addressed the problem, by stating that while there is an important balancing act between protecting society but not stifling innovation, the UK does risk industry leading companies within the space taking ideas away from the UK and heading to countries like Dubai with more favourable regulation.

Both Steven Bartlett and Mo Gawdat, AI expert and bestselling author, spoke separately on the rapid pace of change within AI technologies and were aligned on how no one is in a position to advise on its capabilities or how it may evolve in the future.

Web3 is set to heavily incorporate AI into its ecosystem, to which Mo stated there was a “collective responsibility” to teach AI, speaking on the importance of individuals interacting ethically with the machines. He further explained that “humans make decisions based on our ethics and values” which are informed by our intelligence and that we need to ensure a similar thought process is learned by the machines.

Coinbase’s VP for International Policy, Tom Duff Gordon, confirmed that international expansion was a primary goal for the company in light of the current Web3 landscape in the US.

He said, “we want to bring a billion people into crypto, we’re all about economic freedom,” underlying their “international first mentality” which follows the unveiling of its “Go Broad, Go Deep” strategy previously announced and subsequently secured partnerships with the Bank of Spain and The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Similarly, Blockchain.com, Bitget and Zodia discussed their respective investment strategies into innovation that facilitate global adoption, for both institutions and consumers, highlighting the importance of making trading more accessible and secure. Tal Kol, Founder of Orbs, similarly spoke on the significance of Layer 3 blockchains and the tools required for the next cycle of widespread adoption.

Steven Barlett, voiced concern about the near term risks of seeing and believing what is on the internet before stating that “more people are scammed with cash than crypto” and that blockchain technology is one of the only solutions to verify authentic information or news.

Renowned macro investor and CEO of Real Vision Media, Raoul Pal, added that “blockchain creates digital scarcity” which in turn creates value as the collective continues to move to a digital world. In the current landscape, the over saturation of endless digital content ultimately brings the value down to zero. Chronicle provided further insight into on-chain data usage and its limitations.

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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