The European Green Deal proposed by the European Commission could create “energy labels” marking the energy efficiency of blockchains, which would endanger Bitcoin mining.
For some time now, it is increasingly common to find Criticism of energy consumption of Proof-of-Work blockchains. Especially since the Ethereum merger that changed its consensus mechanism, abandoning mining for validation nodes and reducing its energy consumption by 99%.
El Bitcoin's energy consumption and carbon footprint It is one of the main reasons for concern and criticism of regulators around the world, who do not stop proposing new regulatory frameworks which aim to discourage the use of Bitcoin and also mining.
The Green Deal, the European Commission and Bitcoin mining
In this context, the European Commission has presented the update of the energy strategy that the Commission will adopt. European Union in the coming years, as part of its Green Deal and that will bring significant changes to the Bitcoin mining industry.
The Green Deal aims to improve energy efficiency, implement more responsible consumption, as well as reduce costs and the carbon footprint. To do this, one of the main strategies is to implement renewable energy sources, as well as the complete digitalization of the network.
The bill, which will seek to be strengthened through international cooperation of member countries, states that with the increase in the use of cryptocurrencies and digital assets, it is necessary to use only the more efficient versions of the technologies (from an energy point of view).
The European Union is against cryptocurrency mining
The European Union considered the Possibility of banning cryptocurrency mining altogether, which would have been a serious setback for the sector, since Europe represents more than 10% of the total hashrate of the network.
However, the proposal was put on hold, and it was decided to ask data center operators to reveal energy consumption and environmental impact of the assets they decided to list.
Now, the updated Green Deal heralds the launch of digital tools and other services to help consumers keep their spending under control.
Within these measures and tools, the EC contemplates the implementation of a labeling system which will particularly affect cryptocurrency miners. This system will create a series of labels for data centers, computers and blockchains, as well as several measures to increase transparency in energy consumption.
Although not many details have been provided about this labeling system, it is known that Blockchains will be labeled as “efficient” or “energy-intensive”The Commission also explained that digital tools will be offered to calculate the measures and the climate impact of these technologies.
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