Patrick Hansen shared: BREAKING: The ECON committee of the EU Parliament just voted against the de-facto POW-ban: 32 against, 24 in favor. Big relief & political success for the bitcoin & crypto community in the EU. Will share a breakdown of the vote and what’s next here in this thread. #Bitcoin.

A majority of MEPs from the EPP, ECR and Renew & ID voted against it, while a minority of MEPs from Greens, S&D, and GUE mainly voted in favor. Instead, this alternative amendment from Stefan Berger was supported. What does that mean for POWs?

Mining will in all likelihood no longer be addressed within this MICA regulation but added to the EU sustainable finance taxonomy.

MiCA regulates financial instruments and financial service providers. It makes way more sense to address any concerns around the sustainability of mining technology separately. What’s next?

The MiCA draft will be negotiated in the so-called “trilogies” between the EU Commission/Parliament/Council. After their final agreement (a couple of months) the law will enter into force. However, companies will have a 6m transition period to comply with the requirements.

Any chances left for the POW ban? The groups that lost the vote have one last option. They could veto a fast-track procedure of MiCA through the trilogues & bring the discussion to the plenary of the Parliament. They need 1/10 of the votes of the EP to do so, which they have.

That would bring the discussion around POW into the high-level policy arena. As we can’t predict how that would play out, it should be prevented. Even if it doesn’t change the vote on POW, it would unnecessarily delay the regulation for at least a couple of months.

And even outside of this MiCA regulation, the discussion around POW-regulation is far from over. It will come back in the context of the sustainability taxonomy or in the upcoming data center regulation.

So there is loads of work left in the months and years ahead. But today is a big political success for crypto in the EU. Congrats to DrStefanBerger for this political success and his support for the crypto community.

And thanks and congrats to everyone who contributed to making our concerns and voices heard. The crypto community in the EU has become a political force!! Looking forward to keeping pushing Europe to embrace crypto.

My sources come directly from the ECON committee in the European Parliament. Will add an official link to the website asap?

Here is the first official confirmation from the rapporteur MEP who leads the negotiation of this regulation in the Parliament.

Stefan Berger: “First stage win at MiCA in committee! By accepting my proposal, members have paved the way for future-oriented crypto regulation. It is now a matter of accepting the report as a whole in the final vote & sending out a strong signal for innovation.”

Here is the detailed breakdown of who voted how on the POW-ban amendment. Some single members voted outside of the party line, but generally, S&D, Greens, & GUE voted for, ECR, PPE, Renew & ID voted against. Small correction: 23 for & 30 against overall. 6 abstained.

UPDATE: the final results of the committee vote on the entire MiCA draft are out. A majority of 31 MEPs are in favor. 23 against. Also, a majority of 33 MEPs voted for entering the trialogue negotiations with Commission & Council based on this draft. 25 abstained. 0 against.

Clarification: the 31 votes for, 4 against, and 23 abstentions in the press release of the EU Parliament refer to the final vote on the entire MiCA draft. The numbers in my first tweet refer to the votes on the single POW-ban amendment.