The EU Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has rejected the proposed bill that would have effectively banned Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies in the European Union over their energy consumption.
The proposed rule was aimed at banning the energy intensive Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) mining as part of the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) bill.
The vote was expected to be very close, supported by Green and other parliamentary groups. The rule could still be added as an amendment if the bill goes through.
Some of the most popular cryptocurrencies use PoW including Bticoin, Ethereum’s ether, Litecoin, bitcoin cash, and dogecoin. However, some of the newer cryptos developed in the last few years, use proof-of-stake (PoS) which is much less energy intensive.
Ethereum, which is on second place by market capitalisation, as well as by energy use, is switching to PoS soon with its 2.0 version. The decision was mostly influenced by the need to improve scalability and effectiveness as its mechanism can be tediously slow.
