Conclusion: Regulating distributed ledger technology through financial services law

Abstract

The final summary of the book captures the key conclusions from the analysis: much of existing UK financial services regulation is already fit for the purpose of being applied to centralised providers of DLT-based financial services. Equally, existing home and host-state regulations are capable of solving questions of jurisdiction and applicable law. However, four aspects of DLT-based financial services do give rise to unique regulatory considerations: stablecoins that create digital versions of fiat currency; utility tokens that do not fall under financial services regulation; fully decentralised models of finance that have completely decentralised governance structures; and the settlement, custody and reporting mechanisms that are an inherent characteristic of utilising distributed rather than centralised databases.