EU to drop the “Bitcoin ban” from latest crypto legislation

The EU parliament has removed a section of a pending bill that appeared to ban Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other Proof-Of-Work cryptocurrencies.

In Short:

• The “Markets in Crypto Assets” (MiCA) bill is aimed at providing a legal framework for cryptocurrencies across Europe
• Voting on the bill was delayed last week due to a section which suggested that Proof-Of-Work cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum would be banned
• The section has been removed, and the presenter of the bill has clarified that a ban was not the intent of the legislation.

The European Union (EU) has removed a controversial section of a pending bill that could have seen Proof-Of-Work (POW) cryptocurrencies effectively banned throughout Europe, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

POW cryptocurrencies have come under the spotlight in recent months due to the high energy usage required to “mine” the coins, with many across the government and other industries believing that such a model is environmentally unsustainable.

The bill, titled “The Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA)” bill, was presented to the European Parliament by a coalition led by Stefan Berger from Germany. The bill was scheduled for a vote on Monday, February 28, but was delayed after others in parliament disapproved of a section regarding POW.

The section would have passed into law requirements that by 2025, no crypto or digital assets could be created, sold, or traded within the EU if they used “environmentally unsustainable consensus mechanisms.” The EU was proposing that crypto assets would have to meet “minimum environmental sustainability standards” to avoid being banned.

Early this morning in a tweet, Berger confirmed that the section was removed from the bill, and that the committee would still need to vote.

Richtig ist: Der Paragraph ist nicht mehr im Text. Der Bericht muss erst noch im Ausschuss abgestimmt werden. Bei dieser Abstimmung sehen wir dann, wo die Mehrheiten liegen. Die Entscheidung ist noch nicht gefallen #MiCA https://t.co/4obZWZa5rh

— Stefan Berger (@DrStefanBerger) March 1, 2022

Berger also claimed that it wasn’t the intent of the laws to ban Bitcoin or POW cryptocurrencies, stating that “individual passages of the draft report can be misinterpreted & understood as a POW ban.”

At time of writing it is unclear when the committee will meet to vote on the latest draft of the bill.