While the vote on the Mica law initially scheduled for February 28 had been postponed to the chagrin of Christine Lagarde. It turns out that the law dealing with the issue of the regulation of Proof-of-Work blockchains will be voted on Monday by the European Parliament with a surprise that we could have done without…
A short-lived respite…
Indeed, on Tuesday March 8, we informed you that cryptomining aimed at securing networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum had been removed from the final version of the MiCA law. Unfortunately, the relief was short-lived and it was Paris MP Pierre Person who sounded the alarm.
The latter published a Twitter thread in which he informs his followers that the mention concerning the banning of crypto mining in PoW (Proof of Work) has been added again to the law, which will be voted on this Monday. Bad news never comes alone, in addition to tough regulation of NFTs and DeFi.
“(1/9) The MiCa regulation will be voted on next Monday. As it stands, it definitively dooms the future of crypto-assets in Europe. By banning Bitcoin and Ether, by complicating the use of NFTs and DeFi, the European Parliament is mortgaging our monetary and financial sovereignty. »
Tweet by Pierre Person
The ecological question is obviously the pretext, which has been put forward to ban Bitcoin and Ethereum, which each fall under the law by their nature (Proof-of-work). Consequently, if such measures were to be validated, it would potentially no longer be possible to buy and sell these two cryptocurrencies on European territory.
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Europe quick to kill innovation on its continent
Because obviously, rather than seeing that a new technology is emerging and trying to understand what its application could be in the daily life of its citizens, while getting in touch with entrepreneurs, who are looking for a way to make cryptomining ecological, more sustainable and useful.
Although cryptocurrency mining is very marginal in the European area. The passing of a law banning the use of fossil fuels would probably have been relevant, but this seems to go way beyond European legislators.
Our leaders thus prefer to legislate against an expanding sector. Then, they will feign astonishment when foreign giants will be in a situation of quasi-monopoly to finally moan on television sets in a logorrhea of words emptied of their substance, having only “economic sovereignty” in their mouths, because Europe will still be strawberries, as was the case for the internet. Above all, let’s not change anything, let’s continue like this and hope that our leaders will be more far-sighted in 40 years, when they will have killed any notion of innovation on the continent.
A Europe that prefers to use the services of other countries
With regard to NFTs, the text provides that those which will not be listed on an exchange will not be considered as crypto-assets. Everything else will be considered the same as an asset by market authorities. This will also be the case for DeFi protocols.
While the United States recently signed legislation calling for the country to embrace this new ecosystem, some MEPs believe that going against a movement like the one the cryptosphere is creating and doing the opposite of what one of the greatest powers in the world is doing is “the right solution”…
As Pierre Person summed it up very well:
“(9/9) Once again, we are going against history. Once again, we leave opportunities to others while boasting of having good regulation. If this text is adopted as is, we will pay the price in terms of competitiveness and the interests of European citizens. »
However, all is not lost. There are indeed some gray areas in the text that will be presented today. Indeed, we do not yet know whether it is an alternative to article 2a, which has been added, or whether it is indeed a modification of the latter. Many players in the sector have expressed themselves on the subject of MiCA, in particular those who are best able to express themselves on the subject, those who create value: entrepreneurs. Anyway, this Monday promises to be eventful.
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