CAI0010

Written evidence submitted by Christian Walker

Dear Treasury Committee,

I am writing to you as I have been reading with interest about inquiry into crypto assets in the UK. I very much welcome the inquiry and would like to engage with you in order to help shape the way that parliament looks at blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. Thank you for taking the time to read my views.

I am currently Head of Partnerships at poundtoken.io - the first 100% cash backed GBP stablecoin, regulated in the British Isles (Isle of Man), and audited by KPMG. Before this I was leading an environmental blockchain payment solution called Leafbird.io.

Since 2017, I have had experience of deploying smart contracts to various blockchains, leading globally distributed teams in the space, and have developed a deep understanding of the ecosystem.

I am in the process of writing a manifesto for stablecoin best practice with stablecoin partner projects worldwide. I should be happy to share this with you when it is ready, and/or discuss it’s content prior to release.

Aside from the above I would say my area of specialty is embedding social responsibility into blockchain projects. Blockchain technology is gaining more and more ground, and the world is moving towards web3. This presents great opportunity to rewrite the rules in many ways.

It is my firm belief that in this transition to blockchain/web3 internet and central bank digital currencies (CBDC’s) which will come about within this decade, that we must look to embed environmental stewardship into this new technology. However we must do it in ways that make it as easy as possible for people to partake in. The first and most obvious case is passively (albeit transparently), through a new blockchain based payments system.

As new payment rails are created, we need to take the best of the old rails, and rework them. In my proposed model, we should take merchant card processing fees, and pass them to environmental causes - not intermediary banks as per the old models.

I propose that as the UK government looks to regulate and adopt crypto technologies, we should do so mindful of their environmental impact. I would like to suggest that it become a prerequisite of any blockchain partners tendered by the government.

I see the UK leading the way in environmental stewardship on the global stage with the Bank of England's digital pound. A blockchain payments infrastructure should be implemented that turns everyday payments into peer-to-peer transactions, still charging a merchant a small fee (on par with or less than what they are currently paying card providers). However, this fee should go straight to a foundation wallet, held by the treasury for environmental programmes such as renewable energy grants and initiatives.

This fee would be very low, but imagine if every payment transaction in the UK paid even a penny per transaction. We would soon have a very healthy budget to tackle the climate crisis.

Never before has this been so important. Global temperatures are rising too fast for evolution to catch up. The awareness amongst the next generation is huge. We must act now.

Blockchain is a game changing technology. We have an opportunity to transform the way payments are made and embed environmental protection into the model, while the technology is being developed. Best of all, everyone wins. The merchant pays a smaller transaction fee. The consumer gets probably lower priced items AND needs not do anything else other than spend as per usual (albeit using digital pounds). 

I'd love the chance to discuss this further with you in more detail, and how I believe this could be achieved.

I look forward to hearing from you.

September 2022