As 2023 draws to a close and we approach the new year, the team at National Technology News crunched the numbers to reveal the top five most-read stories of the year.

The most-read story of 2023 was a feature which assessed actions by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to clamp down on Britain’s illegal crypto-asset ATMs (CATMs).

CATMs appeared to take wing around the same time as the start of the pandemic, with their numbers in the UK climbing from just 35 in 2016 to 271 in April of 2021. However, FCA enforcement actions on the ATMs only began in February of 2023.

The regulator was summarily criticised for the delay to action by the National Audit Office, which pointed out that the FCA had required crypto-asset firms to comply with anti-money laundering regulations, which CATMs fell in scope of, since January 2020.

In second place was a feature exploring the potential for GenAI to transform the retail sector. In this article, a range of experts in the sector gave their views on the future potential applications of the technology.

Product descriptions, reducing the carbon footprint of operations, and evolving retailers’ supply chains were just a few of the subtopics discussed throughout.

The abiding impression drawn from the feature and its interviewees was that GenAI will have huge benefits to the retail sector as those in the space make use of the technology in step with its continuing development.

The third most read story of 2023 was a feature that reflected on the lessons learnt from Virgin'smission failure along with the potential for the development of the nascent space industry in the UK.

Start Me Up, Virgin Orbit’s mission to launch the first ever rocket from British soil in January, ended in failure.

Speakers from organisations including the UK Space Agency and the Satellite Applications Catapult elaborated on what the current challenges and opportunities were for the space industry in the UK, including the country’s growing small satellite and low-orbit technology development.

With the ignominious end of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the hefty prison sentence since imposed on its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, our fourth most-read story of the year considered whether cryptocurrency had had its day.

Speaking with Marcus Schmalbach, chief executive of RYSKEX, a company which provides alternative risk transfer solutions on the blockchain, this feature reflected on what the future for the blockchain may hold beyond serving as the technology which underpins cryptocurrency exchanges.

Smart contracts and other underutilised or as yet largely unrealised functions of the blockchain were given consideration, including its potential as a mechanism to support green financing and potentially, by virtue of blockchain’s immutable ledger, serve as a tool to ensure supply chains are verifiably committed to ESG aims.

Coming in at fifth most-read story of 2023 was a feature discussing the impact of police live facial recognition and why more accurate algorithms are unlikely to stop racial bias.

Companies interviewed included the Minderoo Centre, which said that while it was glad that the police answered calls from lawmakers and civil society groups to carry out independent scrutiny and testing, it was still troubled by the fact that the research took place only after a significant number of deployments of the technology were made.

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