And I would hope, on this evidence, that the future evolution of our approach to overall economic management would be in the direction of further improvements to our supply-side flexibility, rather than any retreat from the present emphasis on macro-economic stability. Of course I am well aware that a stable overall macro-economy does not - and cannot - mean equally stable economic conditions for every individual sector or individual business. A particular complication over the past few years has been the surprisingly persistent strength of the exchange rate against the euro, itself a reflection of the puzzling more general weakness of the European currency. This has contributed to an uncomfortable imbalance within the UK economy primarily between the euro-exposed sectors, which have been under consistent pressure, and the domestically-oriented sectors, which have by and large been doing relatively well. Understandably the suffering sectors and businesses tend to complain that monetary policy takes too little account of their position, often pointing out that inflation has for the past two years fallen somewhat below the target. The implication is that monetary policy has been tighter - interest rates have been higher - than was necessary, which, they say, in turn at least helps to explain the behaviour of the exchange rate. I hope you won't think me patronising if I tell you that I have genuine sympathy with their concerns. Indeed I very much admire the huge efforts that many of them have made to overcome the disadvantage coming from the strong exchange rate.

Meanwhile, the ecosystem continues to develop and we will probably need a MiCA 2. First, to deal with concerns over "crypto conglomerates", involving  Page 3 of 6 multiple subsidiaries with diverse activities and geographical locations: the FTX collapse has demonstrated that it is not enough to regulate a single sub-entity in a single jurisdiction. In my view, these conglomerates could be subject to transparency obligations – particularly the preparation of consolidated financial statements – while the sharing of information between jurisdictions will be essential to understanding their overall organisation as well as interdependencies between entities. The second deficiency concerns the ecosystem of what is often erroneously referred to as "decentralised" finance (DeFi) – what we prefer to call "disintermediated” finance. The ACPR is pioneering thinking in this area with the publication in April of a document that outlines possible regulatory frameworks for DeFi. The very successful public consultation process ended at the beginning of June. It was widely reported upon and generated almost 40 responses of high technical quality from both French and international players, including "established" players and new entrants. We will be publishing a summary of these responses in the autumn. Overall, these contributions confirm our understanding of this topic and the regulatory avenues taking shape on each of the three DeFi 'floors': (1) ensuring the resilience of the blockchain infrastructure – albeit a public one – through security standards (2) certifying smart contracts, even if this raises a number of operational issues, and (3) regulating DeFi entry points to protect users.