US and UK Team to Explore Digital Asset Collaborations

The U.S. and U.K. have established a task force to explore partnerships on capital markets and digital assets regulation.

This effort is designed to bolster the “deep and historic connection between the world’s leading financial hubs,” the U.S. Treasury Department said in its announcement Monday (Sept. 22).

According to the announcement, the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future will look into options for “short-to-medium term collaboration on digital assets while legislation and regulatory regimes are still developing,” along with the potential for longer-term partnerships and opportunities for “wholesale digital markets innovation.”

The two countries will also seek ways to “improve links between our capital markets to enhance the growth and competitiveness of both U.K. and U.S. markets,” with a focus on reducing burdens for U.K. and U.S. companies raising capital across borders.

The Treasury Department said the partnership follows a roundtable discussion last week involving the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during President Donald Trump’s state visit.

The same visit saw several American companies make multibillion dollar pledges to invest in operations in Great Britain.

Monday’s announcement said the two sides are set to offer a report in 180 days and are seeking industry input, but otherwise provided little information on which areas of digital assets the partnership would focus on.

The two countries are joining forces amid renewed enthusiasm for the digital asset sector under Trump. Since returning to office, Trump has named crypto-friendly regulators, while agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission have dismissed enforcement efforts against some of the sector’s biggest companies.

And in July, the president signed into law the GENIUS Act, the first piece of major legislation governing stablecoins.

Meanwhile, a report by the partnership by the Financial Times (FT) noted a very different crypto landscape in the U.K. Ex-Conservative Chancellor George Osborne last month criticized the Labor government’s approach to digital assets, warning that Britain risked becoming irrelevant in a revolution “reminiscent of Nigel Lawson’s Big Bang in the 1980s.”

Osborne, a member of the advisory council of crypto exchange Coinbase, said Reeves and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey were hindering the U.K.’s progress in the digital asset realm, the report added.

The U.K. Cryptoasset Business Council, a trade group, said the new task force marked “a clear vote of confidence from the U.S. in the U.K. economy,” per the FT.

“Get this right and it has the potential to turbocharge the City of London and the transatlantic economy,” it added.