A European Union committee has rejected draft rules which could have restricted the use of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Action taken today by the European parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, voted down a proposed amendment to the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework, the EU’s draft regime for regulating digital assets.
In an amendment to the bill proposed earlier last week, could have banned trading of crypto currencies such as Ethereum and Bitcoin which use the energy intensive mining process proof-of-work.
With a vote take today, the committee members voted against the proof-of-work ban, with 24 members voting for the amendment 32 against and six abstentions.
BREAKING: The ECON committee of the EU Parliament just voted against the de-facto POW-ban: 32 against, 24 in favor.
Big relief & political success for the bitcoin & crypto community in the EU💪💪
Will share a breakdown of the vote and what’s next here in this thread. #Bitcoin
— Patrick Hansen (@paddi_hansen) March 14, 2022
This vote signals a win for Europe’s cryptocurrency community which strongly opposed the draft proposal. The proposal would have required cryptocurrency projects to meet sustainability standards.
Patrick Hansen, the head of strategy for crypto company Unstoppable Defi described the move as a “big relief and political success for the bitcoin and crypto community in the EU.”
His comments come after the head of Crypto UK, Ian Taylor, yesterday warned that Bitcoin, Ethereum, NFTs and Defi faced an “existential threat” from the amendment which could outlaw projects which rely on proof-of-work mining.
Commenting on today’s vote, Taylor said “we can all breath a sigh of relief for now, some semblance of logic has prevailed.”
Under the proof-of-work consensus mechanism, which is used by the world’s largest crypto currencies Ethereum and Bitcoin, miners use powerful computers to try and solve complex algorithmic puzzles in order to verify transactions and create new coins.
