Crypto Industry Participants Field Questions from UK Lawmakers After FTX Collapse

In an evidence inquiry session on crypto held by the Treasury Committee, the group addressed negative questions, with some calling for more regulatory clarity.

Nov 14, 2022 at 9:37 p.m. UTC

Updated Nov 14, 2022 at 9:40 p.m. UTC

CDCROP: Crypto representatives testifying at Treasury Committee (UK Parliament) — Crypto representatives testifying at Treasury Committee (UK Parliament)

Camomile Shumba is a CoinDesk regulatory reporter based in the UK. She previously worked as an intern for Business Insider and Bloomberg News. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.

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Following the FTX bankruptcy last week, executives from Binance and Ripple, among others, testified in front of the U.K. Parliament Treasury Committee.

Present were committee chair Harriet Baldwin – a conservative member of parliament – along with other members of that committee. Testifying were Daniel Trinder, vice president of government affairs of Europe at Binance, Susan Friedman, head of policy at payments network Ripple, Ian Taylor, executive director of lobby group CryptoUK and Tim Grant, head of Europe at Galaxy Digital.

“This is the exchange collapsing Ian, must feel a bit awkward coming in talking to us after last week,” Baldwin said. She also fired off other questions to the group, such as if the events surrounding FTX undermined confidence in what they do for a living.

“I think it would be very wrong to tar the entire industry by this one bad apple, which happened to be a very big apple,” Grant said.

The U.K. still has hopes to be a crypto innovation hub and wants to work with regulators to ensure this objective doesn't undermine stability, its Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt told Sky news on Friday.

Turning back to today’s hearing, CryptoUK’s Taylor called for the government to put in place a broad framework like the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation, and Ripple’s Friedman echoed this request. Plus, Taylor and Binance’s Trinder also said crypto firms needed auditing.

The committee also asked Trinder if Binance knew its actions – 1) Unloading on the markets much of its holdings of FTX exchange token FTT, and 2) Agreeing to and then backing out of a deal to bailout/acquire FTX – might lead to the collapse of that exchange.

Trinder denied such intention and offered to quickly send the committee related correspondence documents to justify that Binance’s actions were not fuelled by the intention to destroy its competitor.

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