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Consumer cryptocurrency trading should be regulated as gambling, the treasury committee has urged. In a new report, the committee called for consumer trading in unbacked crypto assets to be treated in regulation as gambling. The cross-party committee of MPs said cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are being used by criminals in scams and money laundering. Unbacked crypto assets – often called cryptocurrencies – are not supported by underlying assets, the committee added. They pose significant risks to consumers, given their price volatility and the risk of losses, according to the MPs, who said retail trading in unbacked crypto more closely resembles gambling than a financial service and should be regulated as such. The report said: “We strongly recommend that the government regulates retail trading and investment activity in unbacked crypto assets as gambling rather than as a financial service, consistent with its stated principle of ‘same risk, same regulatory outcome’.” The committee pointed to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) figures indicating that around 10 per cent of UK adults hold or have held crypto assets. The MPs also said potential productive innovation in financial services should not be unduly constrained. They said technologies underlying crypto assets may bring some benefits to financial services, particularly for cross-border transactions and payments in less developed countries. A balanced approach should be taken to supporting the development of crypto asset technologies, while avoiding spending public resources on projects without a clear, beneficial use, the MPs said. Harriett Baldwin, chair of the treasury committee, said: “The events of 2022 have highlighted the risks posed to consumers by the crypto asset industry, large parts of which remain a wild west. “Effective regulation is clearly needed to protect consumers from harm, as well as to support productive innovation in the UK’s financial services industry. “However, with no intrinsic value, huge price volatility and no discernible social good, consumer trading of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin more closely resembles gambling than a financial service, and should be regulated as such. “By betting on these unbacked ‘tokens’, consumers should be aware that all their money could be lost.” The committee is considering central bank digital currencies as a separate piece of work. A treasury spokesperson said: “Risks posed by crypto are typical of those that exist in traditional financial services and it’s financial services regulation – rather than gambling regulation – that has the track record in mitigating them. “Crypto offers opportunities but we are taking an agile approach to robustly regulating the market, addressing the most pressing risks first in a way that promotes innovation.” Read More Crypto rules get final approval to make Europe a global leader on regulation Is my money safe? What you need to know about bank failures Nearly 80% of APP scam cases start online, says UK Finance Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

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In 2020, philosopher Toby Ord published The Precipice, a book on the risk of human extinction. The chances of "existential catastrophe" for humanity in the next century according to Ord? One in six. It was a shocking number that alarmed many. After years of being flooded with warnings over climate change, rogue AI, nuclear weapons and pandemics, it's hard to disagree that humans face worrying chances. In his book, Ord discusses a number of potential extinction events, some of which can be examined through history. His research involved looking at the number of space rocks that have hit the moon over its history to figure out the likelihood than an extinction-sized asteroid hitting Earth. This was, in fact, looked at in 2022 by French scientists Jean-Marc Salotti, he calculated the odds of an extinction-level hit in the next century to be roughly one in 300 million. By contrast, Ord estimated the risk to be one in a million, although he does point out a considerable degree of uncertainty. Probabilities can be hard to understand in this context. Traditional probability, for example, relies on observations and a collection of repeated events, but human extinction would be a one-off. But there is another way to think if, called Bayesianism, after the English statistician Thomas Bayes. It sees probabilities as a ranking system of sorts. Specific number predictions shouldn't be taken so literally, but rather compared to other probabilities to understand the likelihood of each outcome. Ord's book contains a table of potential causes of extinctions, accompanied by his personal estimates of their probability. From a Bayesian perspective, we can view these as relative ranks. Ord thinks extinction from an asteroid strike (one in a million) is much less likely than extinction from climate change (one in a thousand). However, even using Bayesianism traditionally requires the incorporation of observational evidence. So, what do we make of Ord's "one in six"? Well it's better to take it less literally but to think of it as a warning, to jump start action on issues such as climate change to hopefully reduce the risk of human extinction in the next century. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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