Representatives from small banks, finance houses and bitcoin start-ups met with civil servants from government departments, including Business, Innovation and Skills on Wednesday.

Traditionally, bitcoin's greatest attractions to users have been its anonymity and position outside of the regulated economy.

However, Tom Robinson, founder of virtual currency exchange BitPrice, told the Guardian that at Wednesday's meeting he and others were advocating regulation as a way to legitimise the currency and promote new business and economic growth.

Robinson says that the main gripe within the industry is that banks are blocking the creation of new accounts for money remittances, possibly in the wake of the £1.2 billion fine levied against HSBC last year over anti-money laundering failures.

Removing bitcoin's anonymity and bringing it into the regulatory fold would make it more appealing to banks and Robinson told City AM that the FCA is now "looking at Bitcoin and seeing how it fits into existing regulations".

The Downing Street meeting is the latest sign that large parts of bitcoin community have decided that, despite its anarcho-libertarian roots, the currency must engage with governments.

In July, several major firms in the field banded together in a bid to create a self-regulatory organisation - the Digital Asset Transfer Authority (Data) - covering the nascent industry.

Last month Bitcoin Foundation representatives met with a host of US law enforcement agencies and regulators in Washington to discuss oversight of the digital currency.

And in Germany, moves have already been taken to bring bitcoin into the formal economy, with the government declaring it a "unit of account," making it a kind of "private money" that is subject to taxation.