Share this article
UK NFT Dropped Over Lack of Demand, Finance Minister Hunt Says
The Royal Mint was asked to create a digital token last year, when NFTs were much more popular.
Updated Mar 29, 2023, 4:58 p.m. Published Mar 29, 2023, 12:23 p.m.
The U.K. government wasn't convinced about the demand for a NFT issued by the Royal Mint, Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said in a Treasury Committee meeting on Wednesday.
Last April, the Royal Mint was tasked by then-Finance Minister, now Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to create a non-fungible token, but on Monday, the government announced that it decided to drop the highly anticipated project.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
"I think it's a question of demand," Hunt said. "I think we always want to be at the cutting edge in the U.K., in terms of new technology, but the world has changed significantly since then and we're not convinced that the demand is going to be there in the same way."
The NFT sector, which attracted lots of attention from celebrities and the media, peaked in January 2022 with $5 billion in global sales on some days, according to blockchain data tracker CryptoSlam. The most recent 24-hour sales data is just $44.3 million.
The U.K. government to this point has publicly been undeterred by the crypto winter, continuing to insist its crypto hub ambitions remain.
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
Coinbase, Chainlink Introduce Base-Solana Bridge to Link Ecosystems
The bridge, secured by Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, allows users to trade and interact with Solana-based tokens on Base-based dapps.
What to know:
- A new bridge connecting Base, the layer 2 incubated by Coinbase, and the Solana blockchain is now live on mainnet, enabling asset transfers between the two ecosystems.
- The bridge, secured by Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, allows users to trade and interact with Solana-based tokens on Base-based decentralized applications.
- The open-source bridge on GitHub enables developers to integrate cross-chain support, marking a step toward interconnected blockchains and "always-on" capital markets, with more chains expected to be linked in the future.
Top Stories
