The ban on bitcoin in Europe will be voted on in a few hours

The European Parliament is due to vote on a ban on proof-of-business digital currencies in the next few hours. A positive vote by lawmakers on the bill could mean a ban on bitcoin in European markets.

To Report In the next few hours, members of the European Parliament will vote on a law that could effectively ban bitcoins. However, the outcome of this poll is quite unclear.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is due to vote on a draft framework for the digital asset market. This proposed framework, or “MiCA”, is in fact a comprehensive set of EU rules governing digital currencies.

The draft contains a new clause that appears to limit the use of digital currencies with a high-computational process known as proof of work. However, according to those familiar with the matter, although voting is still a potential risk, some members of the committee may vote against it.

Kevin Desk also stated yesterday that the regulations in question require all digital assets to use “minimum EU environmental sustainability standards for their transaction validation mechanism” before issuing, offering or accepting for trading in Europe. This means that only currencies that are allowed to be offered in the market of authorized European exchange offices that use the EU-approved consensus model (stock proof) in their network.

For digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Atrium already traded in the EU, the law proposes a plan to phase them out to change their consensus mechanism from proving work to other less energy-intensive methods, such as proving stocks. Give.

There are plans to transfer Atrium to a stock-proof consensus mechanism; But it is not yet clear whether the same option is available for Bitcoin. In addition, even if this were possible, part of the bitcoin community would probably oppose changing the network mechanism.

The bill has so far met with a rapid response from the digital currency community around the world.

“Jeremy Allaire, founder of Circle Pay payment services company, said on Twitter:

This vote is crucial in the European Union. That such an offer has worked so far is extremely worrying, and I do not think it is possible to resist the union’s reasons for doing so.

A number of MEPs have pushed for a ban on digital currencies with a proof-of-work mechanism, as there are concerns about high energy consumption, even if renewable energy is used in mining. They fear that instead of the national grid, which is intended for public use, renewable energy will be diverted to proof-of-work Chinese blockchain networks.

The previous version of this article suggested that digital currencies with a proof of work mechanism be banned in the European Union from January 2025 (December 1403). This article was removed before the revised version was included in the recent draft, following criticism from digital currency fans.

Stefan Berger, a Member of the European Parliament responsible for overseeing the content and development of the MiCA framework, is working to reach a comprehensive agreement on limiting proof of work.

“In an interview with Kevin Desk in February, Berger referred to the political parties that are debating energy,” Berger said.

As you can see, the European Greens and the Socialists are criticizing the nature of proof-of-work technology and its high energy consumption, saying that bitcoin consumes more energy than the rest of the Netherlands.

Berger also said at the time that he thought the purpose of the MiCA framework was to legislate for digital currencies as an asset, and that the law was not intended to address the problems of technology or energy law.

The draft will be sent to the EU Parliament, the Council and the European Parliament for trilateral talks after the vote.