The EU regulator calls for a ban on the proof-of-work mining method that is used by Bitcoin and Ethereum because of its high energy demands as we can see more today in our latest crypto news.
The vice-chair of the EU securities and Markets Authority Erik Thedeen called for a ban on PoW mining because of the high energy demands. Thedeen serves as director-general of Sweden’s financial services regulator Finansinspektionen and explained that Bitcoin mining became a national issue for the Nordic country:
“The solution is to ban proof-of-work. Proof-of-stake has a significantly lower energy profile.”
However, he outlined that he was not advocating for a general ban on the industry, instead, the EU regulator calls for a ban on the mining mechanism alone:
“We need to have a discussion about shifting the industry to more efficient technology. The financial industry and a lot of large institutions are now active in cryptocurrency markets, and they have [environmental, social and governance] responsibilities.”
Finansinkspektionen already called for a ban on crypto mining in November last year and claimed that Sweden needed some renewable energy sources:
“Sweden needs the renewable energy targeted by crypto assets by crypto asset producers for the climate transition of our essential services, and increased use by miners threatens our ability to meet the Paris Agreement. Energy-intensive mining of crypto assets should therefore be prohibited.”
The regulator also said that the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency shares his view and the mining industry came under great scrutiny over the last year because of the immense energy demands. The upshot of this was renewed calls for the entire mining industry to focus on using renewable energy but the concerns still remain, as Alex de Vries who is the founder of Digiconomist, said:
“I’ve been saying for a long time you cannot sustainably waste resources—using renewables for crypto mining is no solution.”
As recently reported, The IOTA Foundation was selected as a contractor for Phase 2 of the European Commission pre-commercial procurement. They will develop the prototype improvements for the EU blockchain services infrastructure and the other future versions. The foundation announced the commission’s support in a blog post and they will be competing with four other selected contracts to research how the EBSI could be made more scalable, secure, and energy-efficient now as the European Commission choose IOTA.
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