Mediaboss Marketing

EU regulators should ban the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the Proof-of-Work algorithm due to its energy intensity. Eric Theden, Vice Chairman of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), said this to the FT.

In his opinion, without the intervention of supervisory authorities, an increasing amount of green electricity will be directed to the extraction of digital assets, and not to replacing carbon energy sources.

He noted that in his native Sweden, bitcoin mining has already become a national issue.

The solution is to disable Proof-of-Work. The Proof-of-Stake algorithm has a significantly lower energy profile, Theden said.

What is Proof -of-Work and Proof-of-Stake?

In Sweden, he heads the Financial Supervisory Authority. Theden was appointed to the ESMA position in December 2021.

In November, the official, together with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Bjorn Reisinger, called for a ban on energy-intensive mining in the European Union.

There are other mining methods that can also be used for Bitcoin and Ethereum, estimated to reduce energy consumption by 99.95% while maintaining functionality, they stressed in a statement.

Possible support for the initiative of Swedish government agencies was announced by the government of Norway. They also referred to unjustified energy costs.

Recall that in July 2021, the French regulator proposed to give ESMA the authority to control the crypto industry.

Read the original:
The European Union called for a ban on mining on the Proof-of-Work algorithm - The Times Hub