When you stand up in front of an audience of top US lawyers, you can expect direct questions. But director of public prosecutions Max Hill KC may nonetheless have been startled when he was asked for personal finance advice at the American Bar Association's white collar crime conference in London this week.
Hill's keynote address had mentioned recent advances in tackling fraud involving crypto-assets. His first questioner at Q&A was admirably to the point: 'Are you invested in crypto personally - and should I be?'
The DPP could have responded that giving financial advice would be ultra vires - and potentially in breach of the Financial Services Act. But instead he concentrated on his department's approach to a 'lively debate'. Crypto, he said, 'is here to stay'.
Noting in a mild understatement that 'valuation is a particular challenge', he continued 'We have to live with it rather than try to strike down what can be a useful platform.'
While that wasn't quite answering the question, we can assume that Hill is not staking his retirement on bitcoin. And not advising anyone else to do so, either.
