Rostin Behnam, chair of america Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee, or CFTC, mentioned the Ethereum blockchain’s transition to proof-of-stake might assist scale back crypto’s vitality utilization, however hinted laws would possible nonetheless be wanted to handle the issue.
Talking at a Thursday listening to earlier than the Senate Agriculture Committee, Behnam addressed a query from Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who introduced up the environmental affect of the “important vitality” required of mining cryptocurrencies. With out mentioning the Merge by identify, the CFTC chair mentioned the crypto invoice at the moment being thought of by lawmakers would require a report on vitality utilization that would result in future coverage dialogue and “incentives to maneuver away from carbon-intensive vitality sources.”
“We’ve all heard the statistics concerning the superb quantity of vitality used to mine cash,” mentioned Behnam. “I might say that an occasion occurred final evening with Ethereum which goes to scale back vitality consumption — a step in the appropriate route, however definitely not resolving the issue.”
In his written testimony, Behnam said he was in favor of passing the Digital Commodities Shopper Safety Act, laws geared toward increasing the CFTC’s authority over the crypto market, including the regulatory physique had the “experience and expertise” to be the “regulator for the digital asset commodity market.” In keeping with the CFTC chair, most of the criticisms across the crypto area — specializing in fraud and scams — could possibly be addressed by giving the company “a lens into the buying and selling platform” slightly than counting on customers to convey enforcement instances.
“[The bill] would offer the authority to the CFTC to manage markets. This volatility, the fraud, the manipulation — a lot of it might most likely go away as a result of we now have a regulator, a cop on the beat, and this might deter exercise by unhealthy actors.”
Associated: Crypto invoice wants clarification on ‘digital commodity’ — Sheila Warren
The Ethereum Merge passed off on Thursday, marking the blockchain’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake and successfully reducing the community’s vitality consumption by an estimated 99.95%. The value of Ether (ETH) fell beneath $1,500 within the hours following the occasion, with Cointelegraph reporting many crypto-minted nonfungible tokens with a Merge theme.