Swedish authorities that include Erik Thedéen (director of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority) and Björn Risinger (director of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency) are calling on the European Union to ban Bitcoin and other similar forms of crypto mining. Naturally, the reason relates to energy usage: regulators say that Bitcoin mining has become so intensive that it’s threatening the Nordic country’s ability to meet the demands of the Paris Agreement. Otherwise known as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, the agreement was drafted with the goal of keeping mean global temperatures below certain levels to combat the effect of climate change.
From Euronews’ report:
Between April and August this year, the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining in the Nordic country rose “several hundred per cent,” and now consumes the equivalent electricity of 200,000 households, Thedéen and Risinger said.
In an open letter, the directors of Sweden’s top financial and environmental regulators called for an EU-wide ban on “proof of work” cryptocurrency mining, for Sweden to “halt the establishment” of new crypto mining operations and for companies that trade and invest in crypto assets to be prohibited from describing their business activities as environmentally sustainable.
“It is currently possible to drive a mid-size electric car 1.8 million kilometres using the same energy it takes to mine one single Bitcoin,” Thedéen and Risinger explained.
“This is the equivalent of forty-four laps around the globe. 900 bitcoins are mined every day. This is not a reasonable use of our renewable energy.”
Source: Euronews