Sweden Wants Crypto Mining Banned Across Europe To Meet Climate Change Goals
Cryptocurrency mining has caused a surge in energy consumption across Europe. Faced with this peculiar challenge, Swedish authorities are asking the European Union to ban crypto mining to meet the bloc's climate goals.
Swedish authorities referred to crypto mining as "energy intensive," saying that the rising use in energy to mine cryptocurrency is getting in the way of Sweden's ability to meet its Paris Climate Agreement goals.
A considerable jump in energy consumption
According to Erik Thed¨Ĥen, director of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, and Bj?rn Risinger, director of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Bitcoin mining has surged "several hundred per cent" between April and August in 2021.
Now, crypto mining accounts for electricity consumption equivalent to what 200,000 households would require in the region.
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Owing to this, Swedish regulators have asked the EU to enforce a bloc-wide ban on "proof of work" crypto mining and for Sweden to completely ban establishment of new crypto mining operations.
"Proof of work"
The "proof of work" system is used to mine Bitcoin and Ether, two of the world's largest crypto tokens. Under this method, computers solve complex mathematical equations to verify crypto transactions on any given network.
As the number of transactions go up, so does energy demand. This process creates a competition of sorts among crypto miners. Essentially, the same crypto coin is up for grabs by many at once and those with the fastest computing power and energy source have a better chance at mining cypto effectively.
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In the aftermath of China's crackdown on cryptocurrency, Nordic countries have witnessed a rise in crypto mining activities. Swedish regulators say this is not a "reasonable use of our renewable energy" while adding that 900 bitcoins are mined every day in the country.
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Citation
Bateman, T. (2021, November 12). Europe must ban Bitcoin mining to hit the 1.5C Paris climate goal, say Swedish regulators. Euronews.?
