EU Crypto Industry Calls to Arms as Bitcoin & Ethereum Ban In Cards Again
France-based hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger sounded an alarm about a possible EU-wide ban on cryptoassets that are using the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, calling people to contact members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and oppose the move.
"At the last possible moment, certain parties offered amendments to MiCA [regulation on Markets in Cryptoassets] that would ban proof-of-work consensus protocols, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other popular blockchains and cryptoassets in Europe, issuing an ultimatum to the rest of Parliament: "accept our Bitcoin ban or we will oppose the entire MiCA package"," one of the main players in the crypto industry said.
(Ethereum, the second-largest cryptoasset by market capitalization aims to move to the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which does not require energy-intensive intensive mining, but critics argue it's more centralized and less secure.)
The European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) will vote on MiCA on Monday, March 14.However, according to Patrick Hansen, Head of Strategy & Growth at Unstoppable Finance, a developer of a DeFi wallet, the MEPs will vote on two suggestions and one of them "doesn't plan a ban."
"There seems to be a very thin majority against the ban right now, but [to be determined]," Hansen said.
As reported earlier this month, a draft of MiCA that was first proposed by the European Commission in September 2020, was revised to remove language that proposed a ban on PoW-based cryptoassets.
However, even in the ECON votes for the ban on these cryptoassets and the European Parliament (EP) later confirms this, long and complicated negotiations are expected among the EP, the European Commission, and the EU member states.
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