The demise of the potentially ground-breaking project, named Royal Mint Gold (RMG), highlights the wariness of governments to become involved in the largely unregulated world of cyptocurrencies, which exploded into the public eye last year with the stellar rise of bitcoin. As other mints and fintech startups race to set up similar products, it could squander the chances of Britain's Mint leading the field to build gold into a multi-billion dollar digital asset class. It also reflects a cooling of enthusiasm toward digital assets at the CME, three sources said.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/10/26/business/26reuters-gold-cryptocurrency-royal-mint.html