The newly appointed chairman of the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has laid out a hostile stance towards cryptocurrency at a meeting of the all-party Treasury select committee.
Ashley Alder, who will take over the FCA in February, told Treasury members on Dec. 14 that cryptocurrency-related companies were “deliberately evasive” and suggested that the sector facilitated money laundering.
According to a report From the Financial Times, the current chief executive of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission highlighted his belief that the cryptocurrency ecosystem creates risk that requires further regulation by the government:
“Our experience to date [crypto] platforms, be it FTX or others, is that they are deliberately evasive, they are a method by which money laundering happens in size.”
Alder also added that the cryptocurrency sector brings together "a whole set of activities that are normally segregated," leading to "hugely adverse risk."
The comments from the incoming FCA chairman appear to be at odds with the regulator's efforts to provide an enabling environment for the UK cryptocurrency industry.
The institution told Cointelegraph earlier this year that supervision was largely limited to registering local cryptocurrency exchanges for anti-money laundering (AML) purposes. There are 41 exchanges currently list on the FCA's list of registered crypto assets.
The UK Treasury is now looking formulate new regulatory rules for the cryptocurrency industry, which could include limits on the amount that foreign companies can sell in the country. This has been largely driven by the FTX crash in November.
The FCA will also be tasked with monitoring the operations and advertising of cryptocurrency businesses as part of the proposed regulatory changes.
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