The UK House of Lords held a blockchain discussion meeting, and the deputy governor of the central bank popularized Bitcoin and blockchain technology

A House of Lords committee recently held a discussion on blockchain technology, discussing the technology’s impact on finance and government work with a curious and critical tone.

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee (EAC) heard from academics and representatives from the blockchain industry, as well as the central bank’s deputy governor, Ben Broadbent, in a three-hour discussion.

Broadbent mentioned the idea of ​​issuing central bank digital currency in his speech. He believes that this will be a long-term and continuous development process. At the same time, he also talked about the impact of blockchain technology on the financial market.

The benefits that blockchain brings to the financial market are very considerable, and the cost is relatively low. What I want to say is that although this technology is still in its early stages of development, if you think about it carefully, the industry problems involved in this technology are long-standing and have long been clichés.

In addition to Broadbent, conference speakers include Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, Simon Taylor, co-founder and head of blockchain at 11:FS, Dr. Catherine Mulligan, deputy director of the Center for Cryptocurrency Studies at Imperial College, Michael Mainelli, professor at Gresham College Business School, and the Honourable Spens, director of PwC.

This is the first time that the UK Parliament has publicly and formally discussed blockchain technology, and the first time it has expressed interest in blockchain use cases from a regulator's perspective.

About Bitcoin

Committee members asked a lot of questions about Bitcoin.

One of the members asked, on which network will the central bank's digital currency operate (public chain or private chain)?

Broadbent said that the central bank's digital currency will never use the Bitcoin network, but will use a private chain. We will never use a public chain.

He said that the last thing market participants want is a public system. Someone asked Broadbent whether financial institutions would use public chains to evade market supervision, and his answer was no. We don’t have to worry too much about this issue because the financial system and regulatory authorities are inseparable.

Doubts about blockchain welfare system

Recently, the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) launched a proof-of-concept project for the welfare system based on blockchain. The project has aroused heated discussions from all walks of life. In this meeting, some members criticized the project from an ethical perspective.

Former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling publicly criticized the project because of its potential for privacy breaches.

This system can make personal transaction records public, which does raise ethical issues.

Mulligan believes that the public has the right to choose freely for this project, and the project is still in the proof-of-concept stage, so it is a bit unwarranted to raise certain issues to a moral level too early. She admits that there are some privacy issues involved, but such issues can be properly resolved before the system is officially launched.

From the perspective of regulators, our research on blockchain technology is far from enough. The more similar ethical issues raised by all sectors of society, the more conducive it will be to promoting the practical application of this technology.