A hot murphy: The price of cryptocurrencies keeps on rising, and while that's practiced news for miners, it means more people jumping on the bandwagon, which equals more energy being spent on mining the likes of Bitcoin. Sweden considers the environmental affect of this activeness so severe that information technology wants to ban it entirely in Europe.

Euronews reports that 2 directors of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Potency, Erik Thedéen and Bjorn Risinger, said that ascent crypto mining in the country and the subsequent increase in energy usage threatens its power to run into targets fix out in the Paris Climate Agreement. Therefore, they suggest banning proof-of-work crypto mining beyond Europe, and for Sweden to preclude the establishment of new crypto mining operations and for companies that trade and invest in crypto assets to be prohibited from describing themselves as environmentally sustainable.

The pair said that the free energy consumption of Bitcoin mining in Sweden went up by several hundred percent between April and August and now consumes the equivalent electricity of 200,000 households.

"Crypto-assets are a threat to the climate transition – energy-intensive mining should be banned," the regulators said in a argument. "The University of Cambridge and Digiconomist estimate that the ii largest crypto-assets, Bitcoin and Ethereum, together use around twice as much electricity in one twelvemonth equally the whole of Sweden."

Sweden has relatively low electricity prices thanks to its focus on using renewable energy sources. Ironically, information technology'southward these low costs that are attracting miners and having an environmental bear on. The problem has worsened since Red china declared all crypto illegal a few months agone, forcing miners to relocate elsewhere.

It's not just crypto mining that impacts the environment. The average NFT, which everyone seems to be embracing these days, has a carbon footprint equivalent to more than a calendar month of electricity usage for the boilerplate person living in the European Wedlock.

Not everyone agrees with the Swedish watchdog's assessment. Paris-based alternative investment house Melanion Uppercase said (via Cointelegraph), "The claim that Bitcoin miners jeopardize the electricity network is completely misinformed."

"The absenteeism of such a political weigh [for Bitcoin miners] should non be taken as an opportunity to implement measures rendering illegal an industry for its lack of defensive powers."