Sweden has proposed banning mining in the European Union

Swedish regulators believe that cryptocurrency mining will prevent the country and the EU from complying with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Head of the Swedish Office of Financial Ethics Eric Tedeen and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Bjorn Reisinger issued a joint statement calling for a ban on cryptocurrency mining in the European Union using the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm.

Officials believe that the extraction of digital assets already leads to the release of up to 120 million tons of carbon dioxide per year into the atmosphere. According to Thedeen and Reisinger, this could prevent the country and the EU from fulfilling the Paris agreement on climate change.

The Proof-of-Work algorithm is used to commit transactions and create new blocks. With the help of PoW, miners compete with each other to confirm network transactions and receive a reward. BTC, ETH, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Monero and other cryptocurrencies are currently working on PoW. ETH developers plan to leave PoW in the future in favor of the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm.