Bitcoin Forum

At first, the headline elicited a "what?"

Then I read this:

"Swedish regulators believe cryptocurrency mining will prevent the country and the EU from complying with the Paris agreement on climate change
 
And again "come on"

But then it turned out that officials called for a ban in the European Union for mining cryptocurrencies using the Proof-of-Work algorithm.

In general, okay, Ethereum developers are already planning to abandon PoW in favour of the Proof-of-Stake algorithm, what will happen with other coins, will they also switch to a new algorithm or will they blow off these news?

I don't know if PoS is as secure as PoW (eg if someone holds a lot of one currency) but I also doubt this will be a universal thing for all other countries to follow and that might be the problem - the EU already get more than half of their energy from renewable resources (wherever those miners move to might not).

It would have been nice to add a source. I've found this one: https://ambcrypto.com/swedens-fsa-calls-for-energy-intensive-mining-of-crypto-assets-to-be-prohibited/


I find it overly harsh, but I also expect some of the politicians join this kind of movements especially now since the Methane and electricity prices rose so high (imho exactly because of politics not well thought, but implemented in a hurry). I fail to understand how on earth they cannot see that if they ban it, they will only make it illegal, not actually stop it.

No. Bitcoin using PoS would defeat one of it's main advantages: decentralization. What would happen would be the exact same thing that happened when China banned Bitcoin — it's pretty much just miners moving to other countries.

This is an interesting update and I wonder how many other countries will start to ask about these types of things when it comes to changing laws. Of course the problem here is that proof of stake is not as good of a system as proof of work is.

If you want to read the full joint statement from the Director General at the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority and the Björn Risinger, Director General at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, here it is:
https://www.fi.se/en/published/presentations/2021/crypto-assets-are-a-threat-to-the-climate-transition--energy-intensive-mining-should-be-banned/

The main calls they make are a move to:

Frankly, rather that the above, they should set their focus on how to reduce substantially the price of energy within Europe. Reducing CO2 footprint, whilst being a global objective, should not pivot to massively increasing energy prices as a counterpart.

I don't know if I can call it interesting but the news is definitely one that might lead to similar ideas. Though, I do not feel Sweden has the same influence on this as China once did, and as we know having an agreement reached by all the counties of the EU is no easy task. Even if this becomes a recognisable approval it will take time to be implemented.

Though, overall something to keep an outlook for as I expect more of these news to emerge.

Has nothing to do with Proof of Work consensus mechanism. It's a true consensus mechanism that any True Cryptocurrency will always depend on for true public concensus.     I guess they are simply concerned about the amount of energy that goes into concentrated mining.

You don't mention Proof of Work along side Proof of Stake when talking about decentralized cryptocurrency. PoS is actually a meaningless scam if you think through the idea deeply. It has no place in the world of True Cryptocurrency.

PoW is very anti-fragile and crypto friendly. I hope costly mistakes that lead to easy takeover are not made in the future by crypto projects.

That's correct. The overall energy consumption is bound to rise. But the politicians pursue short-medium term goals (so they can brag with some results and ask for re-election) instead of looking on the big picture and give it a good long-term thinking.

Solar energy is great, but filling all the crops with solar panels is silly.
Wind power is great, but from that I know those huge carbon fiber blades cannot be recycled properly.
Nuclear fission is considered dangerous.
Nuclear fusion is a nice dream. Not reality.
Burning fossil fuels is bad for environment.
Hydro power is not that great either - at least for the few that have to be relocated when new dams are created or when they break (!).


OK, hydro still wins imho. But that's not enough. Something more has to be done, and that in max 10 years. I mean, nowadays, politically, burning methane for creating electricity is "better" than nuclear fission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out). I don't know... I think that there's more of politics than science in those decisions and it's a shame.


PS. I'm not a big fan of nuclear fission either, but I just don't see yet a proper alternative to that.

Sweden can suggest whatever comes to the minds of their politicians, but it is foolish to expect the rest of the EU to agree. Recently, a united Europe could not even agree on whether there will be daylight saving time changes after spending years discussing it. This is obviously bad news for those who have their crypto mining operations in that country, but I have no doubt that some other countries could follow their example.

Interestingly, when it comes to energy consumption, they always find Bitcoin as a starting point for change. Globally, the 0.2% of electricity consumed annually in BTC mining is obviously quite a problem for some.

Bulk of the energy sources used in countries are non renewable. Therefore this is bound to happen sooner of later, at the end of the day until and unless the government makes a sound decision to explore their countrie's renewable sources of energy, it would not only be ban on mining, soon enough there might be power shortage or worse. Plus Germany, UK, Sweden and Spain are the top 4 in using renewable sources of energy as well.

The reason why the price is so high is not even because of that, the demand fell due to covid and now suddenly it's sky rocketing so the producers are struggling to make it work now.

In few years this situation would be even worse, therefore I do believe that, Sweden might influence the global market in regards to mining for sure, not at such a high scale but yes the influence might be there since this is not the problem of one sole country. I do believe it's high time mining companies explore renewable sources of energy.

What can happen is just like what transpired recently with China...miners just move to other countries that can accept the business. Nothing more nothing less. And yes, there are already states in USA that are encouraging miners to come. Or maybe they can shift to El Salvador and get the power from a geothermal source then be certified as a green Bitcoin miner. When one window closed, there can be a door that opens.

IN-BEFORE-NEXT-COUNTRY

ALL countries will have to ban/prohibit bitcoin.
why
because its the only legal method to then have control of licencing/permits of use of bitcoin within institutions.

a bank does not have permission to offer investments in bitcoin unless it has authorisation from government
a government cant offer permission unless it first took away the use of it.

its the same thing as alcohol prohibition
prostitution prohibition
gambling
and many others

they cant regulate, licence, insure, police something until they first ban it.. then they have control of who they can allow to use it under their licence.


take the NY bitlicence
they had to ban all bitcoin activity in NY .. and then just months later offer the bitlicence..

It is funny how some government behaves aggressively as cryptocurrency mining is the major problem to waste energy and the cause of climate change when all this has been in existence before the creation of Bitcoin. I don't know why I have the feeling that this is just another strategy to manipulate the price of the Bitcoin market cause once POS is abducted there's no decentralization.

Instead of banning cryptomining as a whole, why don't they sanction some other industries that are using too much energy and are contributing less on towards the economy? Or better, why not tone down on energy use on all sectors in order to meet the quota/demand of the Paris agreement? It's as if cryptomining is the only culprit to this long-standing problem, and the only solution there is in order to cut down on carbon emissions is to kill it.

It's a harsh call, but then again I expect to see most of the EU to follow suit on the suggestions. Perhaps not to the degree of banning cryptomining as a whole, but making it hard for miners to keep a steady operation going.

to legally be able to offer sanctions. they first need to ban it and then offer licences/permits with rules, which if broke come with penalties like sanctions

That's really odd! Because I believe Sweden was the first country in the world to create a completely cashless economy quite successfully. That shows their technical advancements but now with this comment, I would think twice before calling them advanced.

I am sure the government officials are misguided by the banking lobby. The banking industry has seen that they are unable to fight with the popularity of bitcoin. So they are trying to take different ways to fight it and this could be one if those different ways.

https://news.bitcoin.com/swedish-regulators-call-for-eu-ban-on-crypto-mining-power-company-defends-industry/

https://bitcoinist.com/swedish-regulators-propose-pow-mining-ban-state-owned-power-company-defends-it/

Simple, those industries that you're alluding too are beneficial to the very politicians that re proposing this idea. Just think about it; they need oil, they need fossil fuels, however they don't actually need Bitcoin, therefore to save face, and prove they're doing something about climate change they'll focus their attention on limiting the production of Bitcoin. Depending on how much of a conspiracy theorist you're then you could potentially argue that they're killing two birds with one stone with this approach.

Honestly, the way the world is going with climate change being the buzz word on everyone's tongue I expect a lot of countries to follow suit, and ban Bitcoin mining, and they'll blame it on Proof Of Work.

I don't know when Greta Thunberg became supreme ruler of Sweden but this hypocrisy with climate change is getting out of control.
All this politicians and their leaders like Michael Bloomberg are all traveling with many of their private jets and helicopters, they drive multiple cars, have multiple houses and real estate ownership,
but they are telling regular people should stop driving cars, and we should all stop bitcoin mining because it's boiling the oceans (not), so they propose more bans and tyranny.
In the end, I would not be surprised if some EU countries continue going the road like their role model communist China did, but I doubt it will happen in all member countries.

What do they mean exactly by other methods of mining that could be used for Bitcoin? Do they really try to say that Bitcoin can turn to PoS or something? I mean, it's definitely not going to happen. Also, how about their ban coal mining in the EU, offer incentives for electric cars and higher prices for traditional ones? I truly think that banning crypto mining isn't the way. Energy consumption will increase, so the only way forward is to ensure that this energy is as clean as possible. Also, since climate change is a global issue, they should work more on pressing the US and China to do better. If the EU becomes very eco-friendly, but China and the US keep living as they do now, it's not going to help.

Maybe you should include a link to a reputable news article if you're going to throw this out there. If it were to be true then it sort of fits in with the Scandinavian mentality of responsible and long term thinking (in comparison to other countries). If Bitcoin is to become a solid global e-currency then it really does need to address this issue, but it seems impossible at least until all the Bitcoin are mined and it turns purely into transaction network. There are much bigger environmental issues that could be targeted before going after cryptocurrency, but I can see the EU politicians going after this easy target - compared to say figuring out the oil/gas issue.

You're right I should have put I link, but actually you can just google the headline and get a lot of medias with the news

https://news.bitcoin.com/swedish-regulators-call-for-eu-ban-on-crypto-mining-power-company-defends-industry/ https://www.aroged.com/2021/11/11/sweden-proposed-to-ban-mining-in-the-european-union/ and etc

That will never happen, Europe has embarked on the madness of eco-friendly renewables and now on top of subsidies we're paying the price.
Trying to shut down coal powerplants, nuclear powerplants, limit gas station, there is only one thing left to do when the sun is out and there is no wind, import at triple the price. Anyhow, before taxing the miners the EU should actually look for them, with such high prices Europe is as attractive as  Afghanistan.

If I were to pay the standard price for electricity in 3 seconds I would put my miners for sale.


Solar is great but you could end up with 9 days with no sun, wind is great but you could end up with 7 days of no wind, this happens in Germany every two years usually in the middle of winter. Guess what happened to the prices and where did the energy come from.

Indeed!  ;D
Germany is quite "strange" on that matter: it also had periods of times they incentivized people to consume electricity because they had production too big - and iirc it was because of winds too. And yes, both ways are possible.
And for your question, the answer is always the same: burning stuff. Somehow across the world the electric systems are "safe and good" only if they have "stuff" to burn as a backup. We - as world - have to find a better way.



Is the whole EU "phasing out" nuclear power plants, or it's only Germany? Asking for a friend  (https://sciencebusiness.net/climate-news/news/us-build-its-first-small-modular-nuclear-reactor-romania):D :D :D

This is the thing; they aren't truly concerned about climate change. I mean, I personally think we haven't had too much of an impact in the grand scheme of things, however that doesn't mean I don't support certain things where it makes sense. However, I alluded to it above that climate change has become a sort of buzz word which now everyone wants to talk about, and claim it's a huge problem. Therefore, because of this perceived problem by the masses countries, and companies now are trying to show they care about you, your thoughts, and our environment. When in reality most of them rely on the very thing that is apparently destroying our world at an alarming rate.

Therefore, Bitcoin has become the scrape goat rather than something that is actually contributing a large amount in the destruction of our planet. Like I said above, two birds one stone, and what better way to convince people something is bad with something they've been brain washed to think for years.

No offense, but with 30 years already in which your country hasn't been able to build two already proven technologically reactors do you really expect that to happen in less than a decade? Those are nice things to have but somehow you just don't get to have nice things  :D  And back to the main subject, yeah, seems like only Germany is that keen on getting rid of them, France has a different attitude and this energy crisis probably has strengthened their side a lot.
Btw, Sweden gets around 40% of its energy from nuclear too.


There are even funnier things, Denmark has gone through a period of 4 days in which the wind blew only at night, it had to import close to the limit of the grid during the day, and then at night, it had to simply dump the energy as the wind was coming in waves exactly when it wasn't needed. Cogeneration for example is another thing that looks pretty on paper but in reality, you need power during the day when the poeple are away, so no heating is needed and when finally they need heating at night the energy is not needed...
But all of them look nice on paper, and they can work, it's just that somebody has to pay the price of this madness.

I'm still convinced to this day that Tesla accepting Bitcoin, and then backtracking very quickly was because they wanted to prove to the world that they care about the environment, and of course with the current trend of electric cars they need to try, and convince you that electric cars are better.

I'm not going to put a time frame on it, but in the future eventually all countries will be somewhat reliant on nuclear energy. It's by far the most efficient energy resource we have, and despite the negative stigma around it, if it's managed well then it could potentially be one of the cleanest resources we have too.

We'll likely see several news stories break out in the future on how they've revolutionised energy via nuclear power plants, and made them safer. Thought, ever since Chernobyl we've known how to make them safer, but I bet a lot of them are still using the wrong tips on the reactor rods. I'm using Chernobyl as an example as it's probably the most famous accident revolving around nuclear power, and that wasn't really because the technology is safe, it was rather incompetence from those that were in charge of it.

However, before they can make this transition they'll target Bitcoin as one of the major contributors to climate change, despite it only being around for a decade, and to be honest at the start the amount of miners would have been negligible. Plus, I expect as time goes on more, and more miners will be changing to green energy if/when it becomes profitable to do so.

At the moment though, if you take a look at the prices of  these things they're absolutely ridiculous. It reminds me of the salad example, when it was trendy to be fit, and healthy salad, and healthy foods skyrocketed in price, however were cheap when it wasn't trendy. That's what I'm seeing right now with alternative energy sources.

None taken, really. I know that all infrastructure projects here are kinda like the Brownian motion: you may or may not reach point the intended destination, you may or may not (usually not) do that in the expected time. That's actually one of the reasons I find those news rather funny (I'm way past anger).


I think that all this goes into the same direction: humans have to find way more effective ways to store the energy. And maybe electric cars will bring the salvation/solution (one can hope).

Just because they cannot stop the rising of cryptocurrencies, they put the blame on mining about the problem of climate change as if bitcoin mining has caused all of the natural disasters that happen in our world today. These guys just don't have the guts to tell people since they cannot control or take advantage of the crypto industry, it's better for us to close every mining facility.

Instead, they used the climate change card to have some discussion to ban mining in Europe. Well, good luck with that kind of proposals, it only gave people an idea that they cannot do anything about the rise of the crypto industry.

you do realise that sharing production with other countries has been a thing for decades.
did you know that things like coal and nuclear dont just produce instant energy. so times where nations have a sudden surge of demand the power plants cant instantly supply because it takes 30mins-few hours to turn on extra reactors, power plants.

i remember a few studies years ago that power stations used to see surges of energy at things like commercial breaks of top-listing tv shows. where people watching tv would use the commercial break to put their kettle on and warm some food in a microwave. causing electric grid companies to have to buy in other nations 'excess' to keep the electric flowing.

this buying in process takes milliseconds to get the electric flowing. and has been seen as a FEATURE of the national grid system not a problem.

the buying and selling. importing and exporting of energy is normalised and seen as a every day thing.
so while you think its a fault, and an exception against the rule. the reality is that its normal.

another thing you need to realise is. renewables are still an infant. countries are still expanding. we are not yet at a point where all countries have enough capacity to have a nice buffer of excess to cover all situations. but thats another reason why they call for a deadline of 2050 and not 2025

so in short. expect a future where countries will share their electric. not as a fault. but as a feature..
right now the UK is laying out a large electric cable from the UK to north africa. and using africa as a base for solar farms to give power to the UK. .. so get used to the idea of an international grid

It seems that such an initiative of Sweden will have support from other states as well. The problem of CO2 emissions and climate change is putting humanity on the brink of survival. Therefore, states will go to measures such as banning cryptocurrency mining, which use an energy-consuming proof-of-work algorithm. The ethereum team is really updated on time, including in terms of the transition to the PoS algorithm. Bitcoin will have big problems with this, and since it is unlikely it will also switch to using the PoS algorithm.

The headline that I read was exactly like I wrote here though "Sweden proposed to ban mining in the European Union"

That right there is the problem. They aren't suggesting that POW mining firms shift towards renewable sources of energy and abandon fossil fuels, they want POW mining operations banned altogether. They have a problem with the algorithm (Bitcoin) and since they can't compete against it, they prefer China's way of dealing with problems. Sweden is also considering releasing a national cryptocurrency (the Swedish e-Krona or something like that), or maybe they already did it. Maybe that's part of the motivation behind at attempt to ban POW, aka the biggest competitor to the success of the national digital coin.

Yeah right, the plans are for it to start in 2025 if they get the money...


So again, you talk without doing the minimal research
And btw, that cable is in planning from 2006 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jul/23/solarpower.windpower)


Of course, what could go wrong on relying on a different country to supply you with energy.
I mean countries in Africa are not like Russia, they don't suddenly turn off the tap, you can always trust them , just like Spain did  (https://euobserver.com/climate/153405). It must feel great to know one regime change at you're eating your 5 o'clock biscuits like in the Stuart period at candlelight.
Truly a great step forward...

Emissions and effects from industries that are making the climate have many negative transitions, Sweden's move will certainly be welcomed as these sensitive issues are continuously updated each year, especially with the crypto industry, the amount of energy consumed is becoming too large due to many new workshops being built. But the European Union will always give more time for developers in this field to transform their techniques, completing the process and issuing the ban would take several years or even longer, time of worldwide unification maybe bitcoin is almost exhausted for mining

Ethereum is already going to switch to POS, the developers have already been talking about it for a long time now. But As for Bitcoin, I don’t really know if the developers are going to switch it from what it is now to become a proof of stake. If this law should be passed in Europe, then coins that are not able to switch to PoS will no longer be mined in Europe, and will all moved to other countries where the law will allow them to continue mining these cryptocurrencies.

It is just like what happened in China as they banned cryptocurrencies and miners quickly moved to USA and other countries like Russia. So this is same thing that is going to happen with cryptocurrencies that are not able to switch to POS.

Can't be sure if the world is moving from pow to pos but it seems like due to some energy consumptions, many countries are trying to ban bitcoin mining in order to save some energy and avoid producing greenhouse gas in the world, maybe that's the reason for European Union to ban any pow and crypto mining, in this case, pos can be an alternative solution for their people to keep using cryptocurrencies but after all this, I believe that's not about energy consumption or any other thing like that, because there can be policy behind this reaction to get some benefit and these are just excuses.

Before getting to the PoW coins, did the Swedish government also check the amount of energy the bank system uses daily? The amount of paper accumulate every year? And what about gold extraction? As usual they're looking to someone or something to blame, and cryptocurrencies are always on the top of the list ::)

Some governments still fear that their banks will get their doors closed if cryptocurrencies gain a lot of attention in their country, so these governments try to catch the painful nerve and here, it is mining. They had nothing to talk about, they don't talk on the inflated prices of oil, child trafficking, sexual harassments, kidnapping, raping, extortions, mafia, etc. and divert their citizens' mind by talking all the way about crypto to create negative chaos among youth about it. If Swedish government asks miners to stop mining some day, those miners will pack their bags and move another place to continue.

Bitcoin will keep on going with PoW because it's the most secure consensus algorithm.

I doubt that the banks will close even if cryptos gained too much attention on their particular countries. There's the fear that they have but that won't stop and make them close as they're with the state.

There's still a big part of the banking sector that's being involved to the government's work. I agree that if these countries will make the miners stop what they do, those crypto friendly countries will be the ones to enjoy and benefit from it.

Solar and wind aren't efficient with the current technology, nor will they ever be efficient if the energy demands keep rising. You can figure limitations on energy and factor them in an idealistic society, and there still enough energy to go around. Nuclear isn't as dangerous as people think, the soviet era disaster at Chernobyl was a result of a communist regime with poor regulations. You can make nuclear work well and manage the dangers. The cost benefit analysis given the risks is peanuts compared to the energy you can extract.

This goes beyond bitcoin mining too, by the way. India, China, US are going to continue to pollute unless there are legitimate alternatives. Solar and wind aren't going to cut it.

Since they harvest free energy, the current efficiency doesn't matter that much. The fact they exist means it's not unprofitable. The tech will probably evolve in time, it's early. I would be more worried now by the increase of areas wasted and by the pollution generated for the panels and windmills to be made, and their (lack or) recycling too.


I fail to find any relation between these. For now, as long as the demand grows, they'll build more, will not necessarily make them more efficient.
The problem is, as said in other posts, since sun and wind are far from constant, another form of generating electricity has to be always there "in stand by", and this form is usually coal/gas/petrol based.


Actually human mistake can always exist. Errors can be hidden/covered also in the name of profit. I agree that Chernobyl catastrophe was mostly because of the way the communist regime works, but it can happen shockingly easy also if other conditions are met. Still, I agree that it may be our best chance for now.


At least this is something I'll agree with 100% :D
The problem is there and was always there even before bitcoin mining. This banning of bitcoin mining is just (stupid, bad) politics.