European Commission Initiates €800k Study on How to Best Address 'Bitcoin's Environmental Impact'

• "There is evidence that crypto-assets can cause significant harm on the climate and environment and generate negative economic and social externalities, depending on the consensus mechanism used to validate transactions," was stated in tender documents.

"The increasing demand for crypto-assets and expansion of crypto-mining, including within the EU, could undermine EU's efforts to achieve its climate and sustainability goals, in line with the Paris Agreement. The action aims at enhancing the EU capacity to assess and mitigate the impact of crypto-mining and develop specific sustainability standards."

• "The preparatory action intends to develop a methodology to measure the climate and environmental impact of the consensus mechanisms used by crypto-assets and assess the feasibility of establishing environmental sustainability standards for crypto-assets with a view to the adoption of future legislative action in the area of crypto-asset financial regulation."
• "During negotiations last year on the bloc’s Markets in Crypto Assets regulation, they came close to approving green controls that some characterized as a bitcoin ban."
• "The EU study, to be produced over the course of a year, will look at green issues like crypto’s use of water, waste products and natural resources as well as energy, the commission said."
• According to investor and researcher Daniel Batten, Bitcoin has recently halved its emission intensity inside four years to have the lowest emission intensity of any major global industry.

• "Because Bitcoin mining is not anchored to the 36.7% coal powered global grid, it's also the only major industry where fossil fuel is not the major source of power," Batten said on X.

Tender Document / Archive
CoinDesk Article / Archive
Batten Post / Archive