The European Parliament’s Economic Committee will vote on the Markets in Crypto-Assets Directive (MiCa) bill on March 14.
Crypto Regulation Act Temporarily Suspended
European Union MPs paused a comprehensive crypto regulatory bill to clear up ambiguities. It is not clear when the law will go live again.
Stefan Berger, the main force behind the Markets in Crypto-Assets Directive (MiCA), announced today that the bill will be voted on by the European Parliament’s Economics Committee on March 14.
Berger, the committee chair, had taken the MiCA out of consideration for a vote on Feb. 28. He and others were able to rewrite the language in the bill in this way after opponents objected to a section calling for Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains, such as Bitcoin (BTC). These blockchains would meet ‘minimum environmental sustainability standards’ when minting coins within the European Union.
The legislator suggested it could be misinterpreted. It is seen by some as a PoW ban. In the end, the entire passage was removed. Concerns about Bitcoin’s environmental impact came from some quarters. The Bitcoin purposely uses large amounts of electricity to secure the network.
Nice package of rules
What remains of the bill, originally proposed in September 2020, is still a hefty package of regulations for stablecoins and crypto services. One of the main objectives of Mica is to ensure that the EU regulatory framework for financial services is innovation-friendly. It should not be an obstacle to the application of new technologies.
US-based exchanges and service providers, along with some politicians, have called on the federal government to create a crypto framework as well. It wants to do this to prevent the American FinTech sector from becoming less competitive with, for example, Europe. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that US President Joe Biden would sign another executive order “this week”. This would instruct federal agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission to coordinate crypto regulations. However, it remains to be seen whether this will actually happen this week.