Boris Johnson spoke at a conference on blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrency, as part of his lucrative post-No.10 lecture circuit, despite controversy surrounding the industry following the multibillion-dollar collapse of the FTX exchange.
In his speech, the former prime minister suggested that the advent of blockchain is full of possibilities and appeared to compare it to major technological innovations such as the invention of fire, railways and the internet.
But Johnson also said he supports the idea of more regulation of cryptocurrencies and argued that its advocates “need to convince people that their use cases are real and work for them in their lives, as opposed to it being about for speculation and a new type of financial market or instrument’.
“When there’s a mania and a bubble, when you have speculators driving up prices by finding a larger pool of people to exploit, you really need measures to protect the public from Ponzi schemes,” he said.
Johnson has not yet declared how much he was paid for the speech or who funded it and his trip to Singapore, where he revealed he was staying at the five-star Raffles Hotel, which can cost £1,000 a night.
It comes after he was paid £276,130 by the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers for another speech in the US. He has also taken almost £40,000 in free accommodation from the family of Anthony Bamford, a major Conservative party donor, £11,560 in hospitality from Rupert Murdoch in the US and £10,000 in royal suite hospitality at Heathrow Airport.
Blockchain technology is used to provide a secure way to make and record transactions, most commonly for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
It is largely unregulated, but has come under intense scrutiny from governments in recent weeks after one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, shut down, leaving thousands without frozen savings. The value of the most famous cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, also fell.
Many cryptocurrency giants argue in favor of regulation, but some governments and regulators fear it will give it status and credibility, putting it on par with traditional finance.
This week, the European Central Bank said bitcoin was in an “artificially induced last gasp before the road to irrelevance”, in a sharp intervention arguing against giving the cryptocurrency regulatory legitimacy.
Supporters of the technology, however, include new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has previously said he wants to make the UK a global technology and investment hub for cryptoassets.
Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, has also been vocal in his support of the technology behind cryptocurrency and took £11,638 in hospitality to attend a cryptocurrency conference called Permissionless in Florida, as well as £10,000 to speak at a fintech conference called LendIt.
Speaking at the International Symposium on Blockchain Advances (ISBA) in Singapore, Johnson described the room of blockchain enthusiasts as “pioneers at the forefront of a new and still young technology whose potential the entire world is struggling to appreciate,” adding: “Given the enormous controversies of some use cases… and with all the delicacy and sensitivities in mind, I’ll do my best to tiptoe through the minefield with the tact I’m known for.”
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He also referred to them as “innovators everywhere [do]with the possible exception of Singapore, come to London, come to the UK”.
Johnson said the technology was “morally neutral” and skepticism about its use was “generally misguided.” He also said that “the idea of blockchain seems to me to have all kinds of possibilities to allow people to deal with people without a third party to authenticate,” but he drew a distinction between the technology and its use through cryptocurrencies.
Regarding cryptocurrencies, he said his question is “who’s responsible for the rattling train, because I’ve seen some pretty shocking headlines about this whole thing, and I think we’re going to have to have some way of holding people accountable.”
“If it’s going to succeed, and if it’s going to build trust, it obviously has to be regulated in a way that instills trust in a way that appears to protect everyone involved,” Johnson said.
He said a better relationship between the cryptocurrency industry and politicians “is going to have to happen if this thing is going to have a future.”
Johnson also weighed in on Twitter, saying it could be a “scary environment for politicians” and the “backlogs” were “nothing they weren’t prepared for”.
He said that “a tweetstorm might blow up like a typhoon in the South China Seas and cause your plane to break up, but it doesn’t really reflect what’s happening in the rest of the world.” However, he said politicians would have to “learn to have thicker skins for this” and find “ways to do it without feeling beaten down – I’m not reading too much into that”.
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