EU Regulators Consider BTC Trading Ban To Enforce The Mining Ban

The EU regulators consider BTC trading ban to enforce the mining ban in previously unseen documents that detailed the EU conversation around banning the number one cryptocurrency so let’s read more in today’s latest Bitcoin news.

The EU officials discussed banning BTC in a debate on a ban proposal for the Proof of Work mining mechanism according to the latest documents obtained in a freedom of information request. According to the reports by Netzpolitik, officials from the EU went to suggest that an all-out ban on BTC should be enforced in order to curb the overall energy consumption. The most problematic comments from the crypto community’s perspective came from a document that details the minutes from the EU meeting with Sweden’s financial supervisor and the protection angelic where officials suggested that the regulators pressure the BTC community to switch to a PoS mechanism rather than the PoW mechanism:

“Ethereum started moving [to PoS] because of its community…if Ethereum is able to shift, we could legitimately request the same from BTC. We need to ‘protect’ other crypto coins that are sustainable. We don’t see [the] need to ‘protect’ the Bitcoin community.”

The EU regulators consider BTC trading ban and one speaker even suggested that the EU can place a ban on trading any assets that use this type of mechanism. The answer to the question is redacted from the documents to protect the decision-making process but still brings attention o the fact that the EU is considering a dramatic regulation process. When discussing the potential effect of a BTC Ban on investors and retail traders were cornered because all BTC investors are aware of the downside risks:

“Participants in BTC are fully aware of the volatility of the currency/investment risk. [We] do not need additional protection measures.”

The report came as BTC’s energy usage continued to draw attention from the environmental organizations but also regulators. According to the University of Cambridge’s BTC Electricity Consumption Index, the BTC mining consumes up to 139 terawatts of electricity while for comparison, the entire UK consumers 265 in 2021. At the end of March, Ripple’s co-founder Chris Larsen partnered with Greenpeace to pressure BTC and change the mechansim to PoS like Ethereum aims to do later this year. The EU’s Economic and Monetary Affairs voted against the legislation and called for a ban on PoW mining but these documents do provide an insight into the length that some officials are willing to go and a crackdown on mining.