Advert for Bitcoin on a bus in the capital’s West End Photo by Barry Lewis
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The UK government is the third largest sovereign holder of bitcoin, with approximately 61,250 coins under its control. Last week Southwark Crown Court confirmed the seizure of bitcoin linked to a Chinese fraud, now worth more than £5 billion, after defendant Zhimin Qian, pleaded guilty to possessing and transferring criminal property.
Despite this situation, government officials have so far resisted calls to examine bitcoin’s potential strategic role. In May 2025 Emma Reynolds, then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said that creating a national bitcoin reserve was ‘not appropriate’ for the UK market. Instead of discussing bitcoin’s role, the recent Labour Party conference in Liverpool had a focus on digital identity, where Visa’s Mandy Lamb remarked: “the trick is how do you link payments with IDs?”
Digital ID did not feature in the Prime Minister’s keynote speech. Observers suggested that the omission reflected political sensitivity. A public petition opposing digital ID cards has now gathered more than 2.7 million signatures, making it one of the largest petitions in parliamentary history. The government, however, continues to frame digital identity as a tool of economic inclusion and growth. Officials have said it could deliver a £4.3 billion boost to the economy and the Tony Blair Institute has argued that the public supports a modern identity system that would provide fairness, control and convenience.
Civil liberties groups have challenged the government’s framing of digital identity as inclusion. Big Brother Watch’s report Checkpoint Britain warns that such systems are likely to exclude rather than include, citing Britain’s poor record on major data breaches and polling that shows 63 per cent of the public do not trust the government to safeguard a universal identity database. The report also highlights the risk of mission creep, where IDs first required for public services could become mandatory for work, housing, benefits, voting and even everyday spending. Liberty has raised similar concerns, warning that digital ID systems can impose barriers for marginal communities. International examples show that schemes introduced in the name of access can end up driving exclusion.
George Orwell mural picture Southwold, Suffolk, England, Uk. (Photo by: Geography Photos/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
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James Dewar, an accountant and Partner at Bridge to Bitcoin, when asked about Visa’s vision of linking digital IDs to payment argued that another major concern is the concentration of power. He said, “We need to call out the unholy alliance of mega corporations and consultancy firms cosying up to governments to sell them their advice services and help build technological, legal and regulatory moats jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Whether this is in the realm of CBDCs, AI or Digital IDs. They are conspiring to aggregate power in their interests instead of innovating their products and services to benefit customers using open technologies in a free and competitive environment. Profiting from the latter may be harder work, but it is important to understand that in the digital world this is the only route through which 8 billion people will gain and retain their liberty”.
The Labour Party conference illustrated how closely government and financial incumbents are aligned on identity and payment systems. Lucy Rigby MP, now the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, described digital assets and identity as part of the UK’s strategic infrastructure. Speakers stressed interoperability and verification as foundations of the next stage of financial services.
The question of whether the Treasury should consider a strategic Bitcoin reserve to strengthen the UK’s economic position was put directly to Lucy Rigby, but went unanswered.
Peter Kyle MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, said that Britain should aim to build the first trillion pound business in the UK. His remark overlooked the fact that Bitcoin already exists at that scale as a global asset class. The contrast highlights the policy gap. While some ministers focus on digital identity tied to payments as a framework of control and verification, Bitcoin operates outside that framework, open to anyone with a device and an internet connection.
International examples show how far different countries are already leaning into Bitcoin. In the U.S., President Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the plan is to treat bitcoin held by the government as reserve assets, not simply liquidate them. Congress has since introduced the BITCOIN Act of 2025 to formalise and expand those policies, including potential acquisition of up to one million BTC over five years. El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender and continues to hold it as a…