Internal documents show EU policy makers want to push Ethereum over Bitcoin

EU policymakers are backmost successful the spotlight little than a period aft voting for stricter rules connected unhosted crypto wallets.

This clip it’s to bash with interior documents that amusement treatment to “protect” Ethereum astatine the disbursal of Bitcoin implicit its expected greener credentials.

The contented raises questions implicit protectionism and picking winners versus losers, which are fundamentally against the escaped market.

EU officials are gunning for Bitcoin

The interior documents uncover the grade of talks among officials to “protect” Ethereum.

The sentiment stems from Proof-of-Stake (PoS) networks utilizing importantly little vigor than Proof-of-Work (PoW) networks. PoS doesn’t trust connected electricity-hungry hashing powerfulness for artifact production.

Ethereum is transitioning from PoW to PoS and has been since earlier May 2018, erstwhile devs rolled retired the v.01.01 Casper code to assistance hybrid PoW/PoS consensus.

According to estimates by Cambridge University, the Bitcoin web uses 131 TWh of energy a year, equivalent to the yearly energy depletion of Ukraine. What’s more, arsenic the Bitcoin terms and its usage grow, truthful excessively volition the network’s vigor consumption.

In March, EU policymakers considered an outright prohibition connected PoW mining, causing an uproar successful the crypto community.  Lawmakers subsequently removed wording successful the MiCA connection that suggested a PoW prohibition to easiness the manufacture and debar confusion.

Nonetheless, with renewed scrutiny implicit PoW mining, policymakers are opting for a antithetic strategy – to propulsion Ethereum and different “sustainable” tokens.

Minutes successful the interior documents showed policymakers had floated the thought to “legitimately request” Bitcoin modulation to a PoS network. They besides revealed a run to support “sustainable” tokens without extending those aforesaid protections to Bitcoin.

“If ethereum is capable to shift, we could legitimately petition the aforesaid from bitcoin.

We request to ‘protect’ different crypto coins that are sustainable. Don’t spot [the] request to ‘protect’ the bitcoin community.”

Some accidental Bitcoin’s spot lies successful it being a PoW token. As such, determination are doubts it volition ever modulation to PoS.

The benefits of Proof-of-Work

Talk of Bitcoin transitioning to a PoS web has been doing the rounds for respective years. For example, successful April 2020, Bitcoin Suisse laminitis Niklas Nikolajsen suggested it could hap erstwhile Ethereum had transitioned and “proved the concept.”

During the interview, Nokolajsen besides expected Ethereum to person afloat transitioned “in a fewer months.” But 2 years connected from that interview, Ethereum devs are citing further delays.

PoW isn’t inherently much unafraid than PoS, arsenic PoW information depends connected the hashing complaint of the network. But due to the fact that the Bitcoin network’s hashing powerfulness is truthful high, capturing much than fractional of the full computing powerfulness is prohibitively expensive, making a 51% onslaught pointless.

The imaginable nonaccomplishment of being the astir trusted and unafraid cryptocurrency, and the method challenges of doing so, number against Bitcoin moving to a PoS system.