Mariya Gabriel, the EU commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, has stated that Europe sees cryptocurrency mining to be completely legal, and is also subject to standard electricity rules. The statement was made last week while addressing a common energy concern related to high power consumptions of cryptocurrency mining.
This is what Gabriel said in the statement, “If the energy consumed for this activity is produced according to law, there is no legal basis to forbid or even limit it. … As mining of cryptocurrency is not an illegal activity, the Commission did not put in place any means to track it, so far.”
However, she also clarified the regulatory status of cryptocurrency mining in the industry stating that the mining will be seen as an electricity-consuming economic activity and thus will be subject to EU rules pertaining to “energy efficiency, the power sector and greenhouse gases emissions.”
She also stated that ongoing reviews would be carried out to gauge how much impact the growing cryptocurrency market is having on energy consumption and similar demands. Since the European Union has no official numbers indicating how much mining activity is being carried out, it makes it tough to ascertain how much electricity is being directed to the activity.
The commissioner also points out that China still holds a massive concentration of mining activities even if the government is claiming to take steps and suppress the industry. But commissioner Gabriel is also acknowledging that some part of the mining activities is taking place in EU as well.
Experts are currently of the belief that bitcoin mining alone consumes nearly 0.14 percent of the total global electricity supply. Island, a country known to generate most of its electricity from hydroelectric sources has currently reached a stature when electricity demand for cryptocurrency mining has outreached the country’s electricity supply. People in the blockchain industry are leveraging the situation to call it high time for experimenting with alternative and sustainable energy solutions.