Firm Claims Tokenised GBP First

Crypto firm BCP Technologies says it launched the first GBP stablecoin from regulated issuer – the issue follows what the firm says was a 14-month review, including one month in UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority’s sandbox.

The firm says Tokenised GBP offers a way to move Sterling on-chain, supported by multiple wallet options, is traded on the firm’s BCP markets platform, and is backed 1:1 by reserves held in an un-named UK-regulated institution.

The firm adds the tGBP smart contract has been tested on Ethereum for over a year, and has been “independently audited”, and that it “has been committed to ongoing transparency through independent reserve audits and robust compliance processes”, adding it sees the stablecoin as “a foundational element of the UK’s future digital financial infrastructure”.

“Our vision is to abstract the complexity of blockchain with the familiarity of a GBP denomination, ultimately replacing GBP e-money with our GBP stablecoin,” says Benoit Marzouk, CEO of BCP Technologies. “tGBP supports a broad range of use cases: GBP self-custody for retail and corporates to bring an alternative from banks (and their inherent fractional reserve risk), cross-border payments, institutional collateral management, a GBP option for DeFi lending protocols and a GBP on-chain access for bitcoin-backed loans. It might also be used in the future as the main GBP rail for settling tokenised assets like bonds, securities, or real estate.”