Speaking at the annual Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, Nigel Farage announced he has drawn up a Crypto Assets and Digital Finance Bill - Ian Maule/Getty Images North America
Farage: I will make Bank of England hold Bitcoin
The Bank of England will be required to store Bitcoin if Reform UK wins the next general election, Nigel Farage has said, as he pledged to launch a “crypto revolution” in Britain.
The Reform UK leader said he would introduce a 10pc capital gains tax rate on Bitcoin investments and push the central bank to hold a “Bitcoin digital reserve” if his party came to power.
Speaking at the annual Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Mr Farage announced he had drawn up a Crypto Assets and Digital Finance Bill that would also include measures to make sure that banks could not close users’ accounts if they were trading in cryptocurrencies.
Mr Farage said: “We are going to launch in Britain a crypto revolution. We’re going to make London one of the major trading centres of the world. We’re deadly serious.
“What I want to do when we win the next election is bring us into the 21st century. Have a capital gains rate of 10pc. That means, if taxes are reasonable, people will pay them.
“We’re going to have a Bitcoin digital reserve in the Bank of England, and we are going to pass legislation that says that no bank can close your account because you’re trading in legal crypto or digital products.”
UK is ‘way behind America’
He also announced that Reform UK has become the first UK political party to accept donations in cryptocurrencies.
Mr Farage said: “We’re way behind you in America, but as of now, people with Bitcoin can give us money, provided they’re eligible and it’s all part of what we are.”
Reform’s new approach to crypto comes as Donald Trump’s family rapidly builds a cryptocurrency empire worth billions of dollars – which includes a stablecoin, a Bitcoin mining company, and a series of meme coins.
However, their businesses activity has triggered claims of corruption because of how the Trump family profits from the President’s cryptocurrency policies.
The price of Bitcoin has soared by nearly 50pc since Mr Trump won the election as investors bet on the president’s promises to make the US “the crypto capital of the world”.
Mr Trump received $18m (£13m) in crypto donations during his presidential election campaign.
Mr Farage became a vocal advocate for cryptocurrencies in late 2020, when he declared in his investment newsletter that cryptocurrency was “the ultimate anti-lockdown investment”.
The Reform UK leader was famously “de-banked” in 2023, when his accounts were closed by Coutts and he was refused an account with 10 banks.
He said: “No wonder, so many people are going for Bitcoin and going for crypto because they can’t close you down. And that is the ultimate freedom.”
Mr Farage spoke after Sir Keir Starmer declared that Reform UK had become Labour’s main opposition after the Conservatives had “run out of road”.
The Prime Minister warned Mr Farage’s economic agenda, which includes massive tax cuts that economists have warned would blow an £80bn hole in the public finances, were a “fantasy” that would trigger Liz Truss mini-Budget-style chaos.
The Bank of England was contacted for comment.
This article has been published in telegraph.co.uk via Yahoo News.
