The Committee of the European Parliament supported the bill on the regulation of cryptocurrencies.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament (ECON) adopted a bill on the regulation of cryptocurrencies MiCA by a majority vote.
The draft legislative framework proposed by the European Union for the regulation of virtual currencies and cryptoasset markets (MiCA) sought to completely ban the use of PoW cryptocurrencies and crypto services from January 2025.
The EU parliamentarian in charge of the MiCA legislative framework, Stefan Berger, said at the time that the paragraph in question had been removed but no final decision had yet been made.
Although there are plans to move Ethereum from proof-of-work to a less energy-consuming consensus mechanism called proof-of-stake (PoS), technically, it is unclear how bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by volume traded, can make this transition.
So while there has been a huge push lately to use renewable energy in bitcoin mining, the industry is still very dependent on traditional energy sources, thus making the cryptocurrency potentially vulnerable to the stronger proposal.
🗓 On March 14, 2022, German politician Stefan Berger reported, “A good day for the crypto sector! The EU Parliament has paved the way for innovation-friendly crypto regulation that can set standards worldwide. The process is not over yet. Steps still lie ahead of us.”
The document did not include an amendment to ban mining using the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, which would mean a de facto ban on bitcoin, the parliamentarian noted.
ECON supported Berger’s proposal to further discuss this matter within the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities.
Further discussion of the bill will take place at the level of the EU Council and the European Commission.
“By adopting MiCA as a whole, ECON gave a strong signal for innovation,” Berger emphasized.
