The UK must rapidly adjust to new digital assets technologies like crypto or risk losing our place as a global financial hub, writes Lord Kulveer Ranger
You may have heard quite a few voices recently raising what is perceived as the niche subject of digital assets. In fact, only last week even Google announced its own blockchain-based payments system Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL). In this fast moving world it feels that London is standing at a crucial junction in the face of today’s unprecedented pace of financial technological change. At a time when 12 per cent of UK adults already own cryptoassets and one in four are considering buying cryptocurrencies for retirement planning, other jurisdictions are already pulling ahead of the UK in the race for digital finance dominance. So a critical question I have is, why blockchain, the technology that underpins digital assets, has not been included among the seven “frontier technologies” prioritised in the government’s recent modern industrial strategy?
The Oyster Card showed London could once lead innovation
Fifteen years ago, I was director of Digital London for City Hall and 25 years ago I was part of the implementation team for the Oyster Card digital payments system. In these roles I saw first-hand London’s capacity to be a world leader in digital technology. With Oyster, we were the first city in Europe to make public transport payments digital, and we have long dominated in the financial technology sector, attracting more fintech investment than the next six European countries combined in 2021.
But that momentum has stalled and our leading position on the global stage is far from guaranteed. This is why six months ago, I wrote here in City AM that the UK risked “missing out on the crypto revolution” and that “the entire UK economy could suffer the consequences for a generation” if regulators did not act swiftly. At that time it was a warning, today it may already be becoming a reality.
After six years as the global number two for fintech investment, this year the UK has been unseated by the UAE – driven by a $2bn Binance deal secured thanks to their clearer rules on digital assets. This is no longer a hypothetical, the UAE’s clarity and competitive edge in digital asset regulation has directly led to the UK losing our position.
Is blockchain actually a priority for this government?
The government has taken some steps in the right direction. In her 2025 Mansion House speech, the Chancellor promised to “drive forward developments in blockchain technology, including tokenised securities and stablecoins” and to pilot a digital gilt. Draft legislation published in April 2025 proposes bringing exchanges, stablecoin issuers, custodians and dealers into the regulatory perimeter, and the National Payments Vision highlights distributed‑ledger technology and tokenisation as potentially transformative for payments.
But is blockchain truly a priority for this government? The government’s recent modern industrial strategy is designed to act as a blueprint for the UK’s future growth. It identifies seven “frontier technologies” as national priorities. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced materials, 3G/5G connectivity, life sciences and others make the list – but blockchain does not.
This is a glaring omission. The frontier technologies identified are the ones singled out for billions in R&D, dedicated growth zones, new skills pipelines and sovereign capability units. They are the government’s signal of priorities to global investors and innovators. By omitting blockchain, the message is clear: Britain will back 5G networks to connect devices and AI to automate intelligence but is not similarly prioritising blockchain for the automation of value transfer.
Other countries are far ahead with cryptoassets
This inconsistency matters. Other countries are embedding blockchain into their national strategies. The United States issued an executive order mandating federal support for digital assets. China has invested $54bn in a blockchain roadmap. The EU is building a European Blockchain Services Infrastructure. The UAE aims to move half of government transactions onto blockchain. Even Australia has a National Blockchain Roadmap.
These nations understand that AI and blockchain are complementary and with 80 per cent of UK GDP coming from services and eight per cent from financial services alone, we cannot afford to fall behind them. AI automates decision-making and pattern recognition and blockchain automates settlement and value exchange. Together they will enable new business models – from tokenised supply chains to machine-to-machine commerce – that will define global competitiveness for decades.
If blockchain is important enough to be championed in the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech, written into the National Payments Vision and embedded in forthcoming regulation, why is it not important enough to be elevated as one of our priority frontier technologies?
I urge the Chancellor to reconsider and include blockchain at the heart of our government’s 10-year plan to grow the industries of the future in the UK.
Lord Kulveer Ranger is co-chair of the Digital Markets & Digital Money All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), vice chair of the AI APPG and member of House of Lords Science & Technology Select Committee