Ynys Mon: The island constituency where it’s all to play for in the general election
In the Gwelfor Community Centre in Holyhead, it’s bingo night. Dabbers in hand, players are poised to win.
But there’s another competition brewing here.
Anglesey – and the constituency of Ynys Mon – is one of the most hotly contested seats in Wales.
The Conservatives are desperate to keep hold of it after their narrow win in 2019, but it’s a three-way split, with Plaid Cymru and Labour both vying for victory. All are in with a chance of winning.
In fact, there are double the number of parties running this time, eight in total, compared to the last election.
But every politician in this remote part of Wales has a battle on their hands to convince disillusioned voters.
Bingo caller Margaret Pratchett says politicians in Westminster don’t care about the plight of people in North Wales.
“Just because we’re out in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t mean to say we’re absolutely forgotten,” bingo caller Margaret Pratchett tells me.
I ask whether she thinks politicians in Westminster care about North Wales.
“No. Not one little bit. They’ve got no idea what we need around here. We need work. We need doctors. We need care assistants. All things like that.”
Since Brexit there has been a 14% drop-off in trade at Holyhead
Trade ‘drop off’
Holyhead is a busy working port.
Five times closer to Dublin than London, it is a major freight route between Britain and Ireland.
But since Brexit, trade remains 14% lower – and that impact trickles down to the smallest of businesses.
At the Boathouse B&B, owners Claudia and Chris have seen footfall decline. From port workers to tourists, they’re having to work harder to fill rooms.
Read more
After 100 years of dominance, will Labour retain its grasp on Wales?
Sunak and Starmer’s final TV debate was a draw
How to watch and follow results night on Sky News
“I think trade overall has gone down, but you can see that with the number of people, the number of freights, everything going through the port that has dramatically dropped off,” Claudia says.
The couple say they’ll vote Plaid Cymru – but Claudia isn’t happy with any of the choices: “It’s more a tactical vote. If you’ve got to pick a rotten tomato, you’re going to pick the least rotten.”
Ynys Mon is one Welsh constituency where it is all to play for.
Mix of opinions
In Breakwater Country Park, 30 or so mums are busy painting, singing and reading with their babies and toddlers.
There’s a mix of opinions here on who to vote for.
“I will vote Plaid Cymru because they’ve got Wales’s priority in mind, I think. And I think the Conservatives haven’t done much for Wales in the last couple of years,” one mum tells me.
Another – happy with the PM’s performance.
“I saw what Rishi Sunak had to say and I supported everything he said to be honest. I think the Conservatives have done a good job since they’ve been in power and I think they deserve a chance to continue,” she said.
Ffion Edwards remains undecided about whom she is going to vote for
While some are decided, the majority are not.
Mum of two Ffion Edwards says she’s been approached by all the big parties.
“Yes. From Labour, Conservative, Plaid Cymru – they’ve each been knocking at the door trying to gain our support,” she tells me.
“I’m still very undecided, so – I will be voting for sure, but I’m just not sure which party to vote for at the moment. I’m feeling a little bit nervous. It’s difficult to anticipate what’s going to happen and how that’s going to affect us locally and nationally.”
The Menai Suspension Bridge
‘Despondency’
Like everywhere in this election, jobs and the economy are often front and centre.
Plans to build a new nuclear power station on the north coast of Anglesey would bring thousands of jobs, but it’ll be decades before it’s powering the lights across the Menai Strait.
Oyster farmer Shuan Krijnen says he is experiencing unprecedented levels of despondency
On the south of the island and fresh from the riverbank is Shaun Krijnen – who for decades has farmed oysters in Anglesey.
They’re shipped to London’s finest restaurants, but he’s not happy about the capital’s political offering.
“I’ve been voting in every election since I was 18. I’m 53 now. I don’t think I’ve felt a level of despondency for an election as I have at the moment,” he said.
“Anglesey’s been Labour. Then it’s been Conservative but it’s also, I would say, one of Plaid’s heartlands really. But for me, I don’t even know…I might make up my decision when I see the names on the ballot paper.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
While polls show the general election result may be a foregone conclusion, in battleground constituencies like Ynys Mon, there is all to play for.
? Click here to follow Electoral Dysfunction wherever you get your podcasts ?
Here is the full list of candidates standing in Ynys Mon:
- Virginia Ann Crosbie (Conservatives)
- Leena Sarah Farhat (Lib Dem)
- Emmett Jenner (Reform UK)
- Llinos Medi (Plaid Cymru)
- Martin Schwaller (Green Party)
- Sir Grumpus L Shorticus (Monster Raving Loony Party)
- Ieuan Mon Williams (Labour)
- Sam Andrew Wood (Libertarian Party)
Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, has rolled out prediction markets in the United States after securing key regulatory approval.
Gemini launched its in-house prediction market, Gemini Predictions, across all 50 US states, the exchange announced in an X post on Monday.
Provided via affiliate Gemini Titan, Gemini Predictions enables users to trade on the outcomes of real-world events with “near instant execution” and full transparency.
The launch came shortly after Gemini Titan obtained a designated contract market license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Wednesday, authorizing the company to offer prediction markets in the US.
Rising trend for building “everything apps”
The arrival of Gemini Predictions marks the company’s latest step in building a “one-stop super app,” allowing users to not only trade crypto, but also stake assets, earn rewards, buy tokenized stocks and participate in prediction markets.
The move aligns with a broader industry trend toward all-in-one platforms in crypto, with rival exchanges like Coinbase also rushing to introduce a wide range of services, including trending prediction markets and tokenized stocks.
The trend has also been picked up by self-custodial wallets like MetaMask and Trust Wallet, as well as major decentralized exchanges (DEX) like PancakeSwap, which released a new BNB Chain-based prediction platform Probable on Tuesday.
Related: Phantom taps Kalshi to offer regulated prediction markets in wallet
The project adds to a growing portfolio of prediction markets backed by YZi Labs, the venture capital firm founded by Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, including Opinion, which topped volume rankings in November.
Major providers had faced issues in the US
The industry’s push to launch prediction markets follows years of regulatory uncertainty in the United States, with major providers such as Polymarket resuming local operations after previously facing a ban in 2022.
The platform started rolling out its relaunch in the US in early December, announcing that waitlisted users would be the first to access its US app.
In another sign of a warming US stance toward prediction markets, a group of providers, including Kalshi, Robinhood and Crypto.com, recently received a temporary reprieve after a judge intervened following cease and desist orders issued by the state of Connecticut in early December.
Crypto industry executives have urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission to shift its thinking on blockchain privacy tools, pitching that there are legitimate applications for them outside of criminal use.
The SEC hosted crypto and finance executives for a discussion and panel on financial surveillance and privacy on Monday, the agency’s sixth crypto-focused roundtable this year, as it seeks to overhaul its approach to crypto.
StarkWare general counsel Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, who participated in a panel discussion, told Cointelegraph after the event that a major takeaway was that there shouldn’t be an assumption that those using and creating privacy tools are “overwhelmed by wrongdoers.”
“Why is the assumption that an individual needs to affirmatively prove that they are compliant or they’re using the tool for good?”
“As opposed to it being the other way around, where the assumption is that this individual is using the tool for good until there is some sort of indication that they’re using it for bad,” she said.
Kirkpatrick Bos added that “of course, wrongdoers were using, or are using those tools, but there needs to be a balance.”
During the roundtable, Wayne Chang, the founder and CEO of the credential management company SpruceID, said some percentage of users of stablecoins, a crypto tool that is slowly becoming mainstream, will want privacy.
“There are a ton of stablecoins that aren’t onchain yet that would come onchain if there is privacy,” he said. “We’re going to see an increase in demand for privacy-preserving blockchains.”
“My hope is that regulators continue to engage industry, and we can have those discussions on how to keep privacy for folks while also having tools that are useful,” Chang said.
Customer checks are becoming outdated
Kirkpatrick Bos said a discussion on Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures focused on whether current rules are sufficient in the age of artificial intelligence.
“The question arose and was debated on the panel, well, what is necessary for Anti-Money Laundering?” she said. “Now we have AI. It’s made manual, AML and KYC antiquated. How do we solve for that?”
“There was a sense that the current system of AML and KYC is antiquated, it’s problematic, it’s ineffective,” she added. “But there needs to be some sort of check when it’s a centralized entity facilitating flows of money to ensure that they’re not helping wrongdoers.”
Many financial institutions request a picture of a user’s driver’s license for its KYC checks, which Kirkpatrick Bos said was “absurd, because an individual can go on the internet and develop a fake driver’s license in a matter of seconds.”
“So the question is, can cryptography-based tools improve that and make it harder for bad guys to do that? But can they also do that and make it harder for bad guys while preserving an individual’s privacy and not revealing data like an address, where it is not necessary to vet the legality of the funds?” she added.
Some projects have begun to test crypto-based solutions for proving identity while claiming to preserve privacy, such as Sam Altman’s World, which gives users a cryptographic key they can use to prove they’re human.
SEC’s Atkins warns of potential for crypto mass surveillance
SEC chair Paul Atkins had given opening remarks at the roundtable, warning that if “pushed in the wrong direction, crypto could become the most powerful financial surveillance architecture ever invented.”
“If the instinct of the government is to treat every wallet like a broker, every piece of software as an exchange, every transaction as a reportable event, and every protocol as a convenient surveillance node, then the government will transform this ecosystem into a financial panopticon,” he added.
Related: SEC ’eased up on’ 60% of crypto enforcement cases under Trump: Report
Atkins said that crypto allows for “privacy-preserving tools that the analog world could not provide,” which some institutions depend on to build positions or test strategies without “instantly telegraphing that activity to competitors.”
He added that some of the technology could balance the government’s interest in deterring security threats and the public’s privacy.
“But to best strike this balance, we must make certain that Americans can use these tools without immediately falling under suspicion.”
Magazine: 2026 is the year of pragmatic privacy in crypto — Canton, Zcash and more
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment3 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024