Royal Mint drops Rishi Sunak’s NFT plans
The UK Treasury has dropped its plans to create official Royal Mint NFTs
In April 2022, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak (now Prime Minister), had asked the Royal Mint to issue NFTs sometime within the summer of 2022. This announcement came as part of Rishi’s plan to make the UK a “global cryptoasset technology hub”, expanding upon the success of the nation’s existing financial infrastructure. These NFTs were never released.
During the summer of 2022, the cryptocurrency market and NFT markets crashed, with the value of NFTs being hit particularly hard. This setback presumably saw Rishi Sunak’s plans for the Royal Mint’s NFTs shelved, and now the Treasury has announced that the government’s plans for Royal Mint NFTs has been dropped, almost a year after the plan was originally announced.
If you are unaware of what NFTs are, they are digital collectables. NFTs are “Non-Fungible Tokens”, which are assets (usually artwork) that have been tokenised using blockchain technology. NFTs can be traded for money, typically in the form of cryptocurrencies, and their value depends on the perceived value of the NFT, and the wide cryptocurrency market. With the cryptocurrency market and NFT markets collapsing over the past year, it is hard not to see NFTs as practically worthless, given how easily digital data can be replicated, and how far NFT prices have fallen. There’s a reason why the Treasury has decided to move away from NFTs.
Given the current state of the cryptocurrency market, it is easy to now see Rishi Sunak’s plan to make Britain a  “global cryptoasset technology hub” as a short sighted plan. The cryptocurrency market is not stable, and it is not a vector that ensures long-term growth for the UK. Royal Mint made NFTs always sounded like a government backed get rich quick scheme, hoping to generate an income for the treasury by selling government made NFTs.
Now that the Treasury has backed away from Rishi’s plans, we can now see these plans as the quick PR piece that it was.Â
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