Speaker 1: Mr Miller, Hey, what's up, so Matt. We've got this
Speaker 1: podcast this week on crypto and the UK. And I
Speaker 1: hinted that there's an anchor out there with loads of
Speaker 1: money in crypto, but no idea what their password is.
Speaker 1: Can I tell the world it's you? Sure? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's loads of money, but how much
Speaker 1: I have no idea to be honest with you. So
Speaker 1: I bought a few bitcoin to do my reporting in
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, and at the end of my session
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot about even the fact that I
Speaker 1: had bitcoin in the wallet, but also of course I
Speaker 1: forgot the passwords. But you know, it doesn't bother me
Speaker 1: as much as it bothers my wife, Francie Laqui in
Speaker 1: the London studio and I am David Merritt's also in
Speaker 1: the London studio. I don't know why I hesitated with
Speaker 1: my name might be said again, am I friends? And
Speaker 1: this is in the City, Bloomberg's podcast that connects you
Speaker 1: to the stories at the heart of the City of London.
Speaker 1: Week we are focusing on crypto. It's the new asset
Speaker 1: class and everyone's lives inclueing. My taxi driver last night
Speaker 1: asking me whether he should invest. And as we take
Speaker 1: this the price of bitcoin is hovering around twenty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars after a pretty volatile weekend of trading. Some people
Speaker 1: making money, maybe more people losing it. And as we
Speaker 1: have just heard from Bloombergs Varrio Matt Miller, you lose
Speaker 1: it all, just be lose your password. It's undeniably a
Speaker 1: part of the financial landscape and the questions we're exploring
Speaker 1: this week how the UK currently views crypto, but also
Speaker 1: how crypto companies currently view the UK as a place
Speaker 1: to do business. So we're going to hear from Philip
Speaker 1: Hammond is a senior adviser to Koppler dot Co. There
Speaker 1: are London based crypto custodian and trading services provider, and
Speaker 1: of course, less we forget he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Speaker 1: Now to really sell you on how cryptocurrencies have really
Speaker 1: grained themselves in our current culture, will bring the story
Speaker 1: crypto trading goes to rehab. Oh yes, first, for a
Speaker 1: bit of background, our London based crypto blogger Emily Nicole
Speaker 1: joins us and let's stop with this question. How do
Speaker 1: you gauge where the UK is now? As a crypto destination.
Speaker 1: Is Britain falling behind when it comes to cryptocurrencies. There's
Speaker 1: definitely a sense of that by companies, at least on
Speaker 1: their part, because the UK's regulation of crypto was very
Speaker 1: hands off for several years, and that's not really the
Speaker 1: fault of anybody in particular. The FCA was very clear
Speaker 1: that it was kind of doing as much as it
Speaker 1: could within its own mandate in terms of making sure
Speaker 1: that crypto asset companies abided by money laundering rules, but
Speaker 1: otherwise there wasn't really much that they could do, and
Speaker 1: because of that, crypto companies haven't necessarily been given the
Speaker 1: guidelines they needed to flourish in the UK. So emily
Speaker 1: to understand how we got to this point, it's worth
Speaker 1: unpacking the history of crypto regulation here, and maybe a
Speaker 1: place to start would be the Financial Conduct Authority's decision
Speaker 1: to say we cannot regulate crypto and that was back
Speaker 1: in Was this a game changer? I think it was
Speaker 1: definitely a stance on the FCS part. They wanted to
Speaker 1: make it clear that they could only do so much
Speaker 1: as in their power, and very little is in their
Speaker 1: power to regulate this space. So we've got the f
Speaker 1: c A saying they have no mandate in and in
Speaker 1: ten they come out and ban crypto derivatives for retail investors.
Speaker 1: So what's the significance of them taking that start? In
Speaker 1: terms of crypto derivatives, it's one place where the FSA
Speaker 1: had a reach where it could say, you know what,
Speaker 1: that is something that we already look at. That's something
Speaker 1: we already have powers to handle in the derivative space.
Speaker 1: And in terms of crypto investing, back then, yes, you
Speaker 1: could buy a bitcoin and that bitcoin could be volatile
Speaker 1: and your the price of your investment could go up
Speaker 1: or down. But if you're looking at crypto derivatives, retail
Speaker 1: investors could go on exchanges and buy bitcoin with twenty
Speaker 1: times leverage and wipe themselves out almost instantly if something
Speaker 1: went wrong. And that was the consumer harm they were
Speaker 1: seeking to limit, and it was the part of the
Speaker 1: industry where they felt like they had the powers to
Speaker 1: be able to put those constraints in place, and was
Speaker 1: a wider impact to that move. The far reaching implications
Speaker 1: of that, however, today is that even though that ban
Speaker 1: only applied to retail investors, clearing houses and exchanges in
Speaker 1: the UK have not been willing to list crypto exchange
Speaker 1: traded products for institutional investors either. So Europe has really
Speaker 1: run far and away with that market. It's been offering
Speaker 1: crypto ATPs and on bosses like Switzerland and Germany and
Speaker 1: in Paris for many years. It's a very established market
Speaker 1: over there, it's one of the most established in the world.
Speaker 1: And the UK has had real, no real insight into
Speaker 1: that at all because of this band that happened. And
Speaker 1: then was this a change of attitude for the in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, whether or not that is a
Speaker 1: u turn from from the FCO, or if they're you know,
Speaker 1: changing their sentiment. It's still very common that if you
Speaker 1: look at any f c A speech over the last
Speaker 1: two years, they will say Crypto is something that is
Speaker 1: quite fraudulent. Crypto is something where if you invest anything,
Speaker 1: you should be prepared to lose all of your money
Speaker 1: and we don't have any protections in place to keep
Speaker 1: you safe. So whether or not you know there is
Speaker 1: any movement there or if they'd be changing that anytime soon,
Speaker 1: from a regular truerspective, I'd say no. The government, however,
Speaker 1: is a totally different ballgame. Well, this is I wanted
Speaker 1: to explore a little bit the mixed messaging we're getting
Speaker 1: from the regulators and from the government, and so just
Speaker 1: to kind of set that up a little bit. So
Speaker 1: the Treasury came out a few months ago and said
Speaker 1: we want the UK to be a global crypto hub.
Speaker 1: And if there is one message I want you to
Speaker 1: leave here today with, it's that the UK is open
Speaker 1: for business, open for crypto businesses. If crypto technologies are
Speaker 1: going to be a big part of the future, then
Speaker 1: we the UK want to be in and in on
Speaker 1: the ground floor. They'd obviously seen some of the reporting
Speaker 1: around how bad things might have been going for crypto
Speaker 1: companies here in the last few years, and they're keen
Speaker 1: to change that because the UK is supposed to be
Speaker 1: a financial leader, it's supposed to be a technology leader,
Speaker 1: and if crypto is not part of that, well that
Speaker 1: doesn't look very good for them. But it's such a
Speaker 1: different sentiment and a different voice coming from the government
Speaker 1: as it is from the Bank of England and the SCA,
Speaker 1: who are still very cautious. At the fc A, it's
Speaker 1: still very much you know, there's this sector is right
Speaker 1: with fraud. We can't protect consumers we need to way
Speaker 1: more than we can at the moment, and we don't
Speaker 1: have the mandate to do so. And what about the
Speaker 1: Bank of England as the other voice in the mix, because,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, the government and specifically the Economic Secretary
Speaker 1: to the Treasury John Glenn is saying London is open
Speaker 1: to crypto business, but then the Bank of England Governor
Speaker 1: Andrew Bailey is less convinced. If you want to invest
Speaker 1: in and be prepared to lose all your money, that
Speaker 1: would be my serious warning. If I thought there was
Speaker 1: evidence that people saying, you know what, I'm going to
Speaker 1: put my pension into bitcoin, I would be very concerned.
Speaker 1: So it seems the Bank of England is just not
Speaker 1: as on board. If you ask the Bank of England,
Speaker 1: they're mainly focused on the technology side of things. They're
Speaker 1: looking at essential bank digital currency and you know, very
Speaker 1: very slowly, very cautiously assessing whether that's something the UK
Speaker 1: wants to be involved in. They've predicted that even if
Speaker 1: we do decide to go for a digital sterling, it's
Speaker 1: not going to happen until the second half of this decade.
Speaker 1: I mean, it feels like the UK is really behind
Speaker 1: the curve on this. Are the regulators worried about a
Speaker 1: reputational damage. I think they're definitely worried, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of like our hands are tied
Speaker 1: and we need to find something that can help us
Speaker 1: change that. If crypto companies are to kind of feel
Speaker 1: comfortable basing themselves anywhere, the key things that you would
Speaker 1: need in place to do that public support from the
Speaker 1: government and the regulations that are on that are coming
Speaker 1: down the line, because you can't expect to be in
Speaker 1: place at the moment, or at least ones that you
Speaker 1: feel like you could operate safely within that you can
Speaker 1: feel comfortable hiring hundreds of people and basing your technology here.
Speaker 1: And while the UK has a great reputation of supporting
Speaker 1: its companies in terms of funding and in terms of
Speaker 1: access to the right people because of its its history
Speaker 1: with the technology industry, for crypto it is almost the opposite,
Speaker 1: and there is definitely an element of catching up to do.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Crypto Reporter and the Nicole they are giving us
Speaker 1: a brief history on the UK's relationship with crypto regulation. Now.
Speaker 1: We also thought Dave that it would be good to
Speaker 1: get the take of someone with skin in the game,
Speaker 1: as they say, and some insight into the inner workings
Speaker 1: of government. So we spoke with former Child of the
Speaker 1: Exchequer Philip Hammond. He is now a senior advisor to
Speaker 1: Copper dot Co. There're a London blaced crypto custodian and
Speaker 1: a trading services provider. How has it been leaving government.
Speaker 1: It's been a mixed emotion, obviously, going through the whole
Speaker 1: COVID period, watching that unfold from the outside and watching
Speaker 1: the huge challenges that colleagues who remained in government had
Speaker 1: to deal with. And the big thing about being outside
Speaker 1: the government having been in it is that you know
Speaker 1: what you don't know, so there are non unknowns to
Speaker 1: to use Donald Rumsfeld's terminology, you know the kind of
Speaker 1: information that they would have been seeing, but you don't
Speaker 1: have access to it. So you would have liked to
Speaker 1: be in in government. When there's something big to deal
Speaker 1: with for your country, do you say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: thank god it's not me dealing with it, or do
Speaker 1: you actually miss being part of the action. So one
Speaker 1: of the accusations often leveled at me in government was
Speaker 1: that I was too managerial and not political enough, And
Speaker 1: actually I think that may very well be a fair criticism,
Speaker 1: but I think during the COVID crisis, managerial skills were
Speaker 1: what was required, and yeah, it would have been great
Speaker 1: to have been there and been able to contribute, but
Speaker 1: it was not to be. How did you choose what
Speaker 1: you were interested in post government? Yeah, and I've I've
Speaker 1: collected a number of roles, many of them in and
Speaker 1: around financial services and particularly fintech businesses, because that was
Speaker 1: always an area of interest to me. And strategically, I
Speaker 1: think that one of the really crucial questions that will
Speaker 1: determine the future prosperity of the UK is how successful
Speaker 1: we are in reshaping our financial services sector to continue
Speaker 1: to succeed and to lead even outside the European Union. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there will be things we can't do as a non
Speaker 1: member of the European Union. We won't have access as
Speaker 1: of right to European markets in the future. But historically
Speaker 1: we've been very agile in embracing new technologies, in in
Speaker 1: using our regulators in an intelligent way to gain gain
Speaker 1: a march over our competitors, and that's what we have
Speaker 1: to do again. But historically, so where are we not
Speaker 1: doing it now? You don't think that we're doing in
Speaker 1: our right in particularly in the area of digital digital
Speaker 1: asset trading. I feel that the UK has has missed
Speaker 1: a trick. It isn't too late for us to catch
Speaker 1: up and recover that ground. But I was saying that
Speaker 1: six nine months ago, and we are getting very close
Speaker 1: to the point where it will be too late. Other
Speaker 1: jurisdictions are racing ahead of us, and this is not
Speaker 1: the way it should be. The European Union, with its
Speaker 1: markets in digital assets regulations, is going to be ahead
Speaker 1: of the UK. You have to go back a very
Speaker 1: long way to find a time when the European Union
Speaker 1: was ahead of the UK in regulating emerging financial markets technology.
Speaker 1: That has always been our specialty and our strong point,
Speaker 1: and we need to get ourselves back at the front
Speaker 1: of the pack. So obviously you were no supporter of
Speaker 1: the believing the opin union, but you know when it happened,
Speaker 1: the decision was made. So but one of the arguments,
Speaker 1: of course for Brexit was was regulation was not being
Speaker 1: tied to the beer moth of Brussels to be able
Speaker 1: to liberate the City of London. But what you're saying
Speaker 1: is that the particularly as it pertains to crypto, the
Speaker 1: opposite is happening. Well, as it pertains to everything, it
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Where has this been? Where has been this
Speaker 1: deregulatory tsunami? And of course the truth is because London
Speaker 1: does still depend very much on access to European markets,
Speaker 1: not no longer as of right, but that access depends
Speaker 1: on a broad alignment of UK and European regulatory environments.
Speaker 1: So look, one of the reasons why I did not
Speaker 1: support the proposal to exit the Single Market was that
Speaker 1: I could absolutely understand theoretically the opportunities of a massive
Speaker 1: deregulatory splurge, but I never believed that, for a variety
Speaker 1: of reasons, we would deliver it. But was it about
Speaker 1: public but have supported or was it deregulation or just
Speaker 1: smarter regulation? And that's the problem with crypto, isn't it.
Speaker 1: We need there needs to be a new set of rules,
Speaker 1: not just ripping up the rules. So about with crypto,
Speaker 1: it's the problem is the opposite. The problem is that
Speaker 1: there are no regulations and nobody quite knows where they stand.
Speaker 1: It's it's a bit of a wild West and has
Speaker 1: gained frankly a mixed reputation, particularly among policymakers and politicians
Speaker 1: and the public people who are serious players in the
Speaker 1: crypto market want to see a proper regulatory regime in
Speaker 1: place that weeds out bad practice, protects consumers, and creates
Speaker 1: a proper set of rules that ensures the system operates fairly,
Speaker 1: properly and in a in a well protected way. So
Speaker 1: so what's more essential now? And again we talked about cryptocurrencies,
Speaker 1: but this can be bitcoin, ether, tether. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it's also you know, digital coins for example for europound
Speaker 1: and things like that. So what's what's important is that
Speaker 1: we create the infrastructure for digital trading. At the moment,
Speaker 1: that is all about trading crypto assets, because those are
Speaker 1: the only digitally traded assets that exist. But getting this right,
Speaker 1: getting the rules around digital trading right, will be an
Speaker 1: essential prerequisite for being a player in the digitization of
Speaker 1: traditional financial assets. So at the moment, it's about bitcoin,
Speaker 1: but in one to three I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: many years time it's going to be about token ized equities,
Speaker 1: tokenized bonds, trading them over digital platforms with instant settlement
Speaker 1: very efficiently, very securely. And the jurisdictions that have embraced
Speaker 1: this technology that have regulated it properly and effectively will
Speaker 1: be the ones that developed these markets and they will
Speaker 1: become the new hubs. And there's anyone doing that now, well,
Speaker 1: the Swiss, the Europeans are the whole European Union. Well,
Speaker 1: the European Union regulatory environment is moving to be able
Speaker 1: to respond to this challenge. The Germans have shown some
Speaker 1: appetite to move ahead, and the British but well, the
Speaker 1: the uk f c A is still looking at it,
Speaker 1: but progress has been frankly rather slow. The Chancellor has
Speaker 1: made very encouraging statements about the need for Britain to
Speaker 1: embrace this technology and to be in the lead, but
Speaker 1: the reality, i'm afraid hasn't yet matched the rhetoric. It's
Speaker 1: not too late, but they really do have to move
Speaker 1: over the next couple of months if they're going to
Speaker 1: be able to get back into the lead. Does a
Speaker 1: government need to take a view on bitcoin if it's
Speaker 1: going to introduce some of this regulation. Absolutely not. My
Speaker 1: own personal position is that I am not remotely interested
Speaker 1: in cryptocurrencies and crypto assets. What I am interested in
Speaker 1: is using the current marketplace for crypto assets to build
Speaker 1: the underlying infrastructure that will allow the trading of traditional
Speaker 1: financial assets over those digital rails in the not too
Speaker 1: distant future. So why do you think the FSA is
Speaker 1: late to the game. Partly, it's a bandwidth issue capacity issue.
Speaker 1: This is a very new area of technology. It's very
Speaker 1: difficult for public sector bodies with public sector pay structures
Speaker 1: to recruit the best and the brightest into these areas. Personally,
Speaker 1: I think the f c A should have gone to
Speaker 1: the industry and said we need secondis we can't. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't hire the people we need. We need the
Speaker 1: industry to provide us with the talent to work up
Speaker 1: the regimes we need to introduce. But I think to
Speaker 1: be fair to the regulators, it's also that this has
Speaker 1: been a period of immense stress for regulators that they're
Speaker 1: dealing with the consequences of Brexit, having to put in
Speaker 1: place temporary permissions regimes both in wood and outward, and
Speaker 1: at the same time having to deal with the consequences
Speaker 1: of covid um and the impact on their own working arrangements.
Speaker 1: So I think there's been a bandwidth challenge, but we
Speaker 1: have to overcome it because if we look at our history,
Speaker 1: it's clear that one of Our advantage is one of
Speaker 1: our comparative advantages has always been smarter regulation. The UK
Speaker 1: does regulation well, whether it's um, you know, financial regulation,
Speaker 1: whether it's going back a couple of decades, human fertilization
Speaker 1: and embryology. We've we've shown time and time again how
Speaker 1: getting the regulatory environment right, how taking an early move,
Speaker 1: making an early move, taking a little bit of risk,
Speaker 1: we can build whole industries and get the UK into
Speaker 1: a position of leadership. And that's what we need to
Speaker 1: do again here now. I mean the f c A
Speaker 1: would say that as you say, we've got a reputation
Speaker 1: for the gold standard of regulation and they might not
Speaker 1: be first out the gate on this, but they're going
Speaker 1: to build the best system and really protecting It's about
Speaker 1: protecting consumers, isn't it. And we've seen the volatility obviously
Speaker 1: in crypto markets um so far this year. But it
Speaker 1: sounds like you're saying, really they just is more of
Speaker 1: a an aptitude on that part you said they don't
Speaker 1: have the people to do it, that they haven't got this.
Speaker 1: I think they. I think there's a capacity is. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't call that ineptitude, but I think there is a
Speaker 1: capacity issue. But I think we need to distinguish between
Speaker 1: retail and wholesale institutional business. What matters for the future
Speaker 1: of London's financial markets is that we create the infrastructure
Speaker 1: for digital wholesale trading. Now, I completely agree that there
Speaker 1: needs to be good quality consumer protection regulation around digital assets.
Speaker 1: And you know, I take no view on the digital
Speaker 1: currency markets, but I can see that there is huge
Speaker 1: risk in them for retail participants. But let's focus on
Speaker 1: on the real play here, which is building a wholesale
Speaker 1: digital financial services market which will allow London to be
Speaker 1: a leader in the future. And while the FCA's ambition
Speaker 1: to have the best system is of course admirable, it's
Speaker 1: no good having the best system that ums, you know,
Speaker 1: years after everyone else has already taken control of the market.
Speaker 1: What we're doing at the moment is squeezing people out
Speaker 1: of the UK, squeezing operators out of the UK two
Speaker 1: places like Kenya, British Virgin Islands. If you really care
Speaker 1: about regulation and having a well managed financial services industry,
Speaker 1: you would want to keep these people in London, where
Speaker 1: our regulation will certainly be better and more resilient. After Brexit,
Speaker 1: we saw the majority of share trading in Europe flipped
Speaker 1: from London into utter down. I mean it's crypta. If
Speaker 1: we can build these this new infrastructure, is it a
Speaker 1: way to reverse some of that, to make London the
Speaker 1: trading hub again of Europe despite Brexit or does brexit
Speaker 1: mean that could never happen again? I think Brexit is
Speaker 1: a challenge for London regaining its dominance. But if we
Speaker 1: if we clearly have the superior infrastructure for digital trading,
Speaker 1: as did little trading attains rapid take up over the
Speaker 1: next few years, the market will make its own decisions
Speaker 1: about where it wants these trading activities to happen. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's not just about Frankfurt or London, Amsterdam
Speaker 1: or London. It's about places like Dubai. It's about places
Speaker 1: like Singapore and some states in the US that are
Speaker 1: beginning to develop digital trading hubs. Isn't it all about
Speaker 1: risk and how that there are difficult questions for example,
Speaker 1: if there's a stable coin that was systemic that would
Speaker 1: go bust, whether insolvency rules apply to it. Of course
Speaker 1: there are. It's not just about consumer protection, it's also
Speaker 1: about systemic protection, and that's why we need a properly
Speaker 1: regulated environment for all forms of digital asset trading. Do
Speaker 1: you think it all come? Yes? How fast? Well? I
Speaker 1: think it will come globally because so many people are
Speaker 1: working on it and committed to it. I still I
Speaker 1: remain a notist that the UK will prove to be
Speaker 1: a late starter out of the gate, But when it
Speaker 1: comes out of the gate, it will move quickly to
Speaker 1: take leadership and there is still an opportunity to do that.
Speaker 1: So I hope over the next few months we're going
Speaker 1: to see the f c A move ahead with its
Speaker 1: digital regulatory agenda and that you know, next year it
Speaker 1: will become apparent that London will be the location of
Speaker 1: choice for people looking to play in this market. Lord
Speaker 1: haven't thank you so much for joining in the city.
Speaker 1: David's headline caught my eye a little while back when
Speaker 1: we're prepping for this podcast. It could destroy your life
Speaker 1: crypto trading goes to rehab and that we need to
Speaker 1: bring this to our listeners. Right, So, if trading crypto
Speaker 1: means you have to go to rehab, maybe the UK
Speaker 1: is right to be tightening up the rules for it.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's addictive, if it's like smoking or cocaine,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you need to regulate it to pay better.
Speaker 1: Let's bring in personal finance reporter Charlie Wells. So, Charlie,
Speaker 1: full disclosure. We were I really want you to talk
Speaker 1: about book coin on the past. So really you're here
Speaker 1: to talk about your story on rehab centers for crypto addicts.
Speaker 1: Now it sounds like a joke, but it's actually a
Speaker 1: real thing. Addiction specialists are offering treatments for a compulsive
Speaker 1: crypto traders. I should not be laughing. It's fine, it's
Speaker 1: new and untest. This is new and untested. What's your story.
Speaker 1: We throw around the word addiction all the time. People say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm addicted to exercise, I'm addicted to chocolate. And one
Speaker 1: of the addictions that people have been throwing around a
Speaker 1: lot has been cryptocurrency trading, especially over the past few years,
Speaker 1: especially over the pandemic period. So me Anda Couli wanted
Speaker 1: to ask, is this something that you can actually be
Speaker 1: addicted to? And we reached out to a growing number
Speaker 1: of treatment centers around the world that are focusing on this.
Speaker 1: We reached out to psychologist psychiatrists, and what is really
Speaker 1: interesting is that over the past decade or so, there
Speaker 1: has been an increasing emphasis on not necessarily those chemical
Speaker 1: dependencies that I was talking about, right, cocaine, cigarettes, but
Speaker 1: behavioral addictions. And what these experts told me was it
Speaker 1: this kind of falls online with that. I'm charlty. I
Speaker 1: mean you have a personal finance with blom Bag. So
Speaker 1: why is it? I mean, people don't get addicted to ices,
Speaker 1: do they? Or they don't get addicted. What is it
Speaker 1: about cryptocurrencies that have this sort of chemical reaction in
Speaker 1: people's brains. They're new, so that's something they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: well understood. They're quite volatile, so they go up and
Speaker 1: down you get these rewards. And what some of these
Speaker 1: experts told me was that there are parts of our brain,
Speaker 1: in particular dopamine receptor number four, which when that is elongated,
Speaker 1: that can actually be associated with greater financial risk taking.
Speaker 1: And so in a way, one of these therapists who
Speaker 1: treats crypto addiction and he actually takes payment in cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: he let me know that it's like being at a
Speaker 1: roulette table. I was going to say, this feels like
Speaker 1: addiction to gambling because you can make so much money
Speaker 1: so quickly. Yeah, Francine, that's a really good point. And
Speaker 1: you know, gambling disorder has only been in the quote
Speaker 1: Bible of psychiatry for the past decade or so. And
Speaker 1: what a number of these experts told me was that, yes,
Speaker 1: excessive crypto trading. And that's a really important caveat here, right,
Speaker 1: excessive because cryptocurrency is legitimate, right, there are legitimate investments here.
Speaker 1: It's becoming increasingly mainstream. But this excessive trading can resemble
Speaker 1: gambling disorder. How do you even start to cure that?
Speaker 1: If you go to a party and say, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: and rehabilitation because of crypto trading, I mean, you'll get along,
Speaker 1: you'll get a laugh, and you know, I think that's
Speaker 1: the risk that some of these treatment centers are taking, right,
Speaker 1: that people won't necessarily take them seriously. There's one in
Speaker 1: Switzerland that that charges ninety dollars a week to help
Speaker 1: you out with cryptocurrency addiction. There's a one in Scotland
Speaker 1: that is more reasonably priced in a number around the world.
Speaker 1: How did you find these compulsive crypto trade? Reddit of
Speaker 1: course is a huge place for people who trade cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: these days, right, And there's a particular form where I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe people here might be talking about some
Speaker 1: of the downsides of cryptocurrency. The downsides of bitcoin in
Speaker 1: this form is called butt coin. Oh, here we go.
Speaker 1: I'm like a two year old and I find it
Speaker 1: really but coin is a place where skeptics of bitcoin
Speaker 1: gatherer to talk about problems with it, to make fun
Speaker 1: of it, but also to you know, to have some
Speaker 1: serious conversations. And so there was someone who posted on
Speaker 1: there about having been addicted and thanking butt coin for
Speaker 1: helping him. See how much of a joke some of
Speaker 1: his behaviors were as regards to bitcoin, right, this is
Speaker 1: bitcoin can be legitimate. I think what I really need
Speaker 1: to emphasize to is, you know, we're laughing. It is
Speaker 1: an incredibly important asset class, right, but it's incredibly accessible, um,
Speaker 1: you know, compared to some of the much more complicated
Speaker 1: financial tools that bankers use. It's tradeable in your pocket.
Speaker 1: So that's very, very different from means from finance. I'm
Speaker 1: potentially dangerous. Thank you so much. I'm Franci Laqua and
Speaker 1: I'm David Merritt. That's it for this week's episode of
Speaker 1: the City. We will be back next week and in
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you like the show, Please ease rate
Speaker 1: it and check out the Bloomberg UK website for more
Speaker 1: news and views. This episode was produced by Summer Sady
Speaker 1: and special thanks to our guests Emily Nicole, Charlie Wells
Speaker 1: and Lord Philip Hamond, and to Matt Miller for reliving
Speaker 1: the trauma of losing the password to his crypto wold
Speaker 1: ahead of Bloomberg Podcasts is Francesco Levi