UK forms Bitcoin Policy org to increase BTC education and adoption

God preserve our gracious coin, and long live the coin. A team of entrepreneurs, environmentalists and Bitcoin (BTC) advocates have come together to support Bitcoin in the UK.

Bitcoin Policy UK (BPUK) brings together stakeholders, policy makers, environmentalists, tax specialists, Bitcoin experts and miners to ‘unlock the potential of Bitcoin’ in the UK and explore how the decentralized currency’s burgeoning industry can benefit UK households, businesses and local community.

BPUK’s primary goals are to drive investment, generate and prepare students for the Bitcoin jobs of the future, raise awareness and education, and explore the use of wasted and stranded energy resources for Bitcoin mining.

Freddie New, BPUK’s head of policy, told Cointelegraph that “the genesis of this project was the Bitcoin Collective Conference in Edinburgh” – the UK’s largest Bitcoin conference, which took place in autumn 2022.

New told Cointelegraph that most of the team had been working on Bitcoin advocacy in one way or another before the conference, “but coming together in this way will enable us to formalize these efforts and focus on three key related areas.” He continued:

“To get clear and accurate information about Bitcoin to policy makers and regulators, highlight the environmental and sustainability benefits of the mining industry, and gather and provide educational resources for the next generation of Bitcoiners.”

Some of the advisors and board members are familiar to Cointelegraph readers. Author and journalist DecentraSuze, whose son recently introduced Bitcoin to the classroom, is director, while Jordan Walker, co-founder of The Bitcoin Collective, and Mark Morton are advisors. Morton’s Bitcoin mining company, Scilling Digital Mining, was featured in a recent Cointelegraph mini-documentary:

Walker told Cointelegraph that BPUK is an important piece of the collective puzzle to drive Bitcoin education in the UK:

“It’s time for the UK to step up when it comes to embracing new technologies like Bitcoin, or we risk being left behind.”

New told Cointelegraph that BPUK is not for profit. To operate, it hopes to raise funds through the community, tapping into the growing trend of funding projects with satoshis, or small amounts of BTC, via the Lightning Network, a layer-2 instant payment solution built on top of Bitcoin.

Part of the team’s mission is to locate and exploit renewable, wasted or stranded energy across the UK, New explained.

“The job […] to identify potential sites for sustainable mining and our aim is to develop some small mining installations that can be used as ‘proof-of-concept’ sites.

He continued with the plan: “We can then invite UK policy makers to these sites so they can see the mines in action and hopefully understand more about the industry’s potential to reduce vented methane, provide demand response for renewable grids, or simply act as a customer for energy which is otherwise wasted.”

The UK has burgeoning renewable energy sources but lacks hash rate (a measure of the Bitcoin protocol’s security). According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, the UK supports 0.23% of the global monthly hash rate, compared to the US’s 37.84%.

This is partly due to UK electricity costs exceeding those in the US and Asia, but also due to awareness of Bitcoin mining – or lack thereof – in the UK. Also, legacy media platforms have taken aim at the Bitcoin mining industry in recent years – The Guardian criticized Bitcoin as “digital beef” rather than “digital gold”.

The BPUK highlighted that, in light of the UK’s departure from the EU, it could develop a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency regime separate from the regulation of Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) in Europe. The European Parliamentary Committee on MiCA could threaten Bitcoin mining on the continent.

BPUK co-founder Krista Edmunds took inspiration from El Salvador’s decision to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. Edmunds explained:

“The UK has a huge opportunity to become one of the first jurisdictions globally to embrace Bitcoin. We have seen what is possible in El Salvador, which is experiencing huge gains due to its forward-thinking approach to Bitcoin. The UK can secure a similar competitive edge, and we hope to support the British people in making it happen.”

On the state side, the policy group will have the opportunity to educate and inform. Lisa Cameron, a Member of Parliament and chair of the Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), told Cointelegraph in an interview last year: “We are on a learning curve and it is just very, very important because the UK Government has a political vision that the UK will become an international hub for cryptocurrency and digital assets.” She added that there was some confusion around Bitcoin, central bank digital currencies and cryptocurrency.

New explained that as a Bitcoin-only organisation, BPUK ultimately seeks to “ensure that Bitcoin is included in government proposals, if not front and centre.”