Share this article
UK Financial Regulator to Introduce Isolated Environment for Testing Financial Applications
During a pilot phase, the environment was used to test the eco-friendliness of decentralized ledgers.
Updated Jul 21, 2023, 7:33 a.m. Published Jul 20, 2023, 11:55 a.m.
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) plans to provide access to a digital sandbox, or testing environment, for firms to see how their products perform at an early stage of development, the regulator said on its website on Thursday.
The sandbox, which started operating on a trial basis in 2020, is also open to data providers and will offer firms access to data sets, application program interfaces (API) and data security protection. During one of the two pilot phases, it was used to evaluate sustainability performance, including eco-friendly decentralized ledgers.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
A sandbox provides a secure setting in which developers can test and evaluate their products in the knowledge that any unintended side effects will be isolated from a live environment. While not currently configured so, the FCA's offering can be configured to support a number of distributed ledgers and digital-asset use cases, like building interoperability between networks, according to a person familiar with the project.
Former Economic Secretary John Glen set out plans for the sandbox in a speech last year, in which he said he wanted the country to foster crypto innovation, a sentiment echoed by his successor, Andrew Griffith.
Previously, the sandbox was available only during pilots and TechSprints, which brought people from the financial industry together to address industry challenges.
Updated (July 21 07:33 UTC): Adds that the sandbox is not currently configured to support distributed ledgers in third paragraph.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Bhutan commits up to 10,000 bitcoin to back new mindfulness-based economic hub
The Himalayan kingdom plans to deploy part of its sovereign bitcoin holdings to fund long-term development through Gelephu Mindfulness City.
What to know:
- Bhutan committed up to 10,000 bitcoin toward the long-term development of Gelephu Mindfulness City, a new economic hub in southern Bhutan.
- The pledge builds on Bhutan’s years-long use of bitcoin mining powered by surplus hydropower.
- Officials say any use of bitcoin will prioritize capital preservation, transparency and long-term stewardship.
Top Stories
