The U.K. government on Monday announced plans to mint its own NFTs (non-fungible tokens), in its effort to turn into a “world leader” in the cryptocurrency space. 

Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has asked the Royal Mint — the government-owned company responsible for minting coins for the U.K. — to create and issue the NFT “by the summer,” City Minister John Glen said at a fintech event in London. “There will be more details available very soon,” he added.

The decision is a part of the effort made by the government to “lead the way” in crypto, according to Glen. The minister shared a number of steps that the country will follow to regulate digital assets: 

• Bring certain stablecoins into the U.K. payments framework so that stablecoin issuers and service providers can “operate and grow in the U.K.”
• Consult on a “world-leading regime” for regulating trade in other cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.
• Ask the Law Commission to consider the legal status of blockchain-based communities known as decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs.
• Examine the tax treatment of decentralized finance (DeFi) loans and “staking,” which gives crypto users the ability to earn interest on their savings.
• Establish a Cryptoasset Engagement Group that will be chaired by ministers and host members from U.K. regulators and crypto businesses.
• Explore the application of blockchain technology in issuing debt instruments.

“We shouldn’t be thinking of regulation as a static, rigid thing,” Glen said. “Instead, we should be thinking in terms of regulatory ‘code’ — like computer code — which we refine and rewrite when we need to.”

Glen said the government was also “widening” its gaze to look at other aspects of crypto including web3. 

“No one knows for sure yet how Web3 is going to look,” Glen said. “But there’s every chance that blockchain is going to be integral to its development.”

“We want this country to be there, leading from the front, seeking out the greatest economic opportunities.”