When a UK parliamentary committee proposed last month that crypto be regulated as gambling, it didn't take long for the Treasury to reject the idea.
But the fact that it has been suggested is telling, says Gavin Brown, an associate professor of financial technology at the University of Liverpool.
"[The committee] I didn't really understand the technology," he says.
And in this, they are not alone.โ despite cryptocurrencies, the digital currency designed to offer an alternative payment method to traditional money, which is now over a decade old.
"I see that all the time. I'll take a cab in London and the cabbie will know ten times as much [about cryptocurrency] than the CEO of a multinational bank I'm about to visit," says Brown.
"We still see that disparity of knowledge, and not just from people on the street, but also from the people who are actually making the policies that should know better."
That's because cryptocurrencies are "powerful things," he says.
The largest Bitcoin transaction in history was for just over $1 billion ($1.5 billion), which, to move without a bank, carried a transaction fee of $3.56 ($5.35).
"And it cleared up and settled in minutes," says Brown.
