EU Parliament Admits it cannot ban Proof-of-Work and scrapes proposal
Honeybadger don’t care: The EU has pulled back and canceled the proposal to ban Proof-of-Work faster than you can say “Bitcoin!”. The European parliament has scrapped wording from a proposed legislation that would have banned the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism.
Although the EU has not officially admitted that it is practically impossible to ban Bitcoin, the quick move could be judged as such.
“Correct: The paragraph is no longer in the text. The report still has to be voted on in committee. In this vote, we will then see where the majorities lie. The decision has not yet been made #MiCA”
The change in directions followed quicker than expected but it still doesn’t save the face of the incompetent people in the EU Parliament. On Tuesday the changes where confirmed. Stefan Berger, member of the European Parliament and in charge of spearheading the bill known as the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation, confirmed the removal of the section. A new deadline for the pending MiCA legislation to be voted on was not agreed upon yet.
Bitcoin is software code with intricate real life incentives and almost impossible to ban. The proposal language had sparked backlash and laughter that a Monday vote on the bill’s passage was indefinitely delayed. The bureaurcats try really hard to keep their jobs. Unfortunately they don’t have skills that would be usefull in a free market economy aka Bitcoin standard.
The original proposal stated: “As from 1 January 2025, crypto-assets issued, offered or admitted to trading in the Union shall not be based or rely on environmentally unsustainable consensus mechanisms. The consensus mechanisms shall comply with minimum environmental sustainability standards.”
The law aims to create a legal framework by establishing a licensing mechanism for service providers and establishing standards for stablecoins, among other things. Because of the high energy requirements (or rather ignorance about the meaning of energy in Bitcoin), EU lawmakers wanted to ban the networks starting in January 2025. Bitcoin’s energy consumption has become a topic of controversy as the world moves toward hyperbitcoinization.
The draft can be found under the link below:
https://www.scribd.com/document/561963880/MiCA-Compromises-v7-28-Feb-2022-Track-Changes#from_embed
