Swedish regulators believe cryptocurrency mining will prevent the country and the EU from complying with the Paris agreement on climate change
The head of the Swedish Financial Conduct Authority, Eric Tedeen, and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Bjorn Reisinger, issued a joint statement calling for a ban in the European Union for mining cryptocurrencies using the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm.
Officials believe that the extraction of digital assets is already leading to the release of up to 120 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year.
According to Thedeen and Reisinger, this could prevent the country and the EU from complying with the Paris agreement on climate change.
The Proof-of-Work algorithm is used to confirm transactions and create new blocks. With the help of PoW, miners compete with each other to confirm transactions on the network, receiving a reward for this.
At the moment, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Monero and other cryptocurrencies are working on PoW. Ethereum developers plan to abandon PoW in the future in favor of the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm.
