Today in crypto: The UK will reportedly look to extend finance laws to crypto in 2027, Willy Woo says Bitcoin OGs will buy up Satoshi’s 1 million Bitcoin if a quantum attack happens, and an analyst says Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is now driven by politics.
UK seeks to extend finance laws to crypto from 2027: Reports
The UK government will introduce legislation on Monday that will bring crypto companies under existing finance laws by October 2027 under the oversight of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the finance ministry has told local media.
The Treasury proposed draft crypto legislation in April, which has seen only minor changes. It would subject crypto to the same laws and consumer protections as traditional finance products.
“Bringing crypto into the regulatory perimeter is a crucial step in securing the UK’s position as a world-leading financial center in the digital age,” said the head of the Treasury, Rachel Reeves.
Reeves added that the bill gives “clear rules of the road” and strong consumer protections while locking “dodgy actors out of the UK market.” Meanwhile, economic secretary Lucy Rigby said the UK’s intention “is to lead the world in digital asset adoption.”
Will Woo says Bitcoin OGs would buy Satoshi Nakamoto’s coins if they flood the market
Willy Woo, a long-term Bitcoin (BTC) holder, said that Bitcoin OG’s would buy Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1 million BTC if a sufficiently powerful quantum computer emerges, hacks those wallets, and then dumps all those coins onto the market.
This would keep the price afloat because “Many OGs would be in to buy the flash crash,” Woo said, but clarified that the 4 million total coins stuck in old, vulnerable wallet address types hitting the market at once could cause a multi-year bear market. Woo added:
“[The] BTC network would survive; most coins are not immediately vulnerable. However, 4 million coins in P2PK addresses, including Satoshi’s, have their public keys in the open and are vulnerable.”
The crypto community continues to debate the effects of a quantum computer breaking modern cryptography and encryption standards, with many analysts and crypto industry executives advocating for migration to quantum-resistant addresses before a sufficiently powerful quantum computer is developed.
Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is intact, but driven by politics and liquidity: Analyst
Bitcoin’s long-debated four-year cycle is still playing out, but the forces behind it have shifted away from the halving toward politics and liquidity, according to Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research.
Speaking on The Wolf Of All Streets Podcast, Thielen argued that the idea of the four-year cycle being “broken” misses the point. In his view, the cycle remains intact, but it is no longer dictated by Bitcoin (BTC)’s programmed supply cuts. Instead, it is increasingly shaped by US election timelines, central bank policy and the flow of capital into risk assets.
Thielen pointed to historical market peaks in 2013, 2017 and 2021, all of which occurred in the fourth quarter. Those peaks, he said, align more closely with presidential election cycles and broader political uncertainty than with the timing of Bitcoin halvings, which have shifted throughout the calendar over the years.
“There's this uncertainty that the sitting president's party is going to lose a lot of seats. I think that's also the odds now that Trump would lose or Republicans would lose a lot of seats in the House, and therefore, maybe he's not going to push a lot of his agenda through anymore,” he said.
