Bitcoin ban is not threatened in the EU for the time being

Denise Bergert

The climate impact caused by the energy-hungry mining of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin does not lead to a ban on digital coins in the EU. A passage that could have led to Bitcoin being banned in Europe was removed from the final draft of the “Guidelines for the Provision of Crypto Services (MiCA)” this week, as Tagesschau online reports. .

MPs classify Bitcoin as environmentally harmful

In an earlier draft of the MiCA, MEPs from the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left had called for a ban on crypto services. This should be based on “ecologically unsustainable consensus mechanisms”. In this case, the term consensus mechanisms refers to the procedure that is intended to ensure that all participants in the blockchain have a uniform data status. In order to achieve this uniform data status, a lot of computing effort is required for the cryptocurrency, which in turn leads to high energy consumption.

Rising bitcoin price increases energy consumption

A rising bitcoin price also has an impact on energy consumption. The more valuable the cryptocurrency becomes, the more so-called Bitcoin miners want to mine new coins. As a result, the required computing power also increases the energy consumption. In 2019 alone, all cryptocurrencies emitted 68 million tons of CO2, according to Mike Berners-Lee from the Institute for Social Future at Lancaster University. In ten years, Bitcoin and Co. could be responsible for 0.12 percent of the global CO2 footprint. The new version of the MiCA is to be voted on in the EU Parliament next week.

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