With the dust having settled on 2020, despite the pain felt elsewhere in the economy, it’s apparent that venture investment in UK technology companies remained far stronger than many feared.
Investing in cryptoassets (or digital “tokens”) is high risk. However with the high-risk comes great returns for those investors who are able to hold their nerve.
In our August 2020 blog (Cryptocurrencies/cryptoassets in the United Kingdom), we discussed the UK’s ‘watch and learn’ approach towards regulation of cryptoassets. We now have an important update to that discussion, whereby the UK regulatory landscape has shifted, and businesses dealing with cryptoassets must beware of the new regulations that will directly apply to them.
The proposed National Security and Investment Bill was given its first reading in Parliament on November 20th, this new bill is designed to protect national security and protect the UK’s infrastructure. In short, if passed, the Bill will allow the Government “powers to investigate and intervene in potentially hostile foreign direct investment.”
In the early months of 2020 and during Covid lockdown, access to capital for early-stage and scaling businesses became more difficult as investors’ risk appetite waned due to the unprecedented uncertain economic conditions only a once-in-a-century global pandemic brings to an economy.
