The European Parliament will not ban the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for the time being

By supporting the reduction of pollution and the responsible use of energy resources, the European Parliament was preparing for a de facto ban on cryptocurrency mining in the EU. However, the project was rejected by a vote.

According to the draft law rejected in the European Parliament, energy-efficient activities, associated with the generation of cryptocurrencies and the intermediation of transactions based on them, were to become illegal throughout the EU. If implemented, the measure would have “cut” good percentages of total electricity consumption, strengthening both efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the region’s energy security by eliminating a non-essential category of consumers.

Although the EU Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs voted on Monday to move forward with a legislative framework for regulating digital assets, the law package removed rules that would have banned EU citizens and residents from engaging in energy-intensive activities. of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. It is worth noting that these laws did not prohibit emerging technologies, developed specifically to facilitate more efficient cryptocurrency operations.

Meanwhile, the European Union is already facing an energy crisis that has led to a sharp rise in electricity tariffs in the last year, making it even more difficult to manage in the context of giving up (voluntarily or forcibly) gas supplies to Russia.

Although it comes in a very “bitter” context, the positive aspect is that electricity tariffs have become so high anyway that cryptocurrency miners are still withdrawn from the market, on the grounds of unprofitability of operations.

According to more or less official data, the Bitcoin network uses more electricity in a year than Norway and would rank 27th in the world for annual electricity consumption, if it were a country in itself.