Mayor of Austin, Texas, Steve Adler, has issued a statement suggesting he believes Austin should follow Miami and New York’s examples of embracing cryptocurrencies. Specifically, he suggested BTC could be accepted as payment for taxes, fees, and penalties.

Bitcoin mixing service CoinJoin has announced that it is now blacklisting BTC tied to illegal activity in a move that has been derided by crypto privacy advocates.

The European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee has rejected a proposal that could have effectively banned the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin across the European Union.

CryptoCompare's Digital Asset Summit is returning on 30th March at Old Billingsgate, London. As Europe's flagship institutional summit for digital assets, this is the perfect opportunity to connect with key industry decision-makers and leading names in finance who are adopting and embracing the digital asset revolution.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Austin Could Soon Embrace Crypto Payments
• Bitcoin Mixing Service CoinJoin to Block Illicit Transactions
• EU Parliament Committee Reject Proposal Limits Proof-of-Work Cryptos
• What Is Proof-of-Stake (PoS)?
• CCDAS Summit - Get 10% Off for Being a Loyal Reader

Austin Could Soon Embrace Crypto Payments

Mayor of Austin, Texas, Steve Adler, has issued a statement suggesting he believes Austin should follow Miami and New York’s examples of embracing cryptocurrencies. Specifically, he suggested BTC could be accepted as payment for taxes, fees, and penalties.

In the statement, Steve Adler suggested blockchain technology could be used to create innovative solutions in the city and support individuals struggling with social problems. The city, he added, should dive into the Web 3.0 universe and use it to develop its supply chain management.

The document details Austin’s City Manager is being directed to conduct a fact-finding study on the potential of BTC and other cryptocurrency policies, including accepting BTC payments for municipal taxes, fees, and penalties.

The City Manager is also set to look into “other applications of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies that could benefit” the city and its residents, as well as “issues relevant to Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency protocols and applications” including financial stability, security, and consumer risks and benefits.

Bitcoin Mixing Service CoinJoin to Block Illicit Transactions

Bitcoin mixing service CoinJoin has announced that it is now blacklisting BTC tied to illegal activity in a move that has been derided by crypto privacy advocates.

Cryptocurrency mixing services let users obfuscate their transaction history, effectively boosting their privacy. These services often attract those looking to launder stolen coins or use them for illicit purposes.

CoinJoin has reportedly been used to mix funds stolen from cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and from the 2020 Twitter hack. While the service has banned these uses in its terms and conditions, it hasn’t actively blocked transactions until now.

The blacklisting will apply to those using the zkSNACKs coordinator run by the Wasabi Wallet team. The blacklisting won’t apply to anyone using alternative coordinators. In a statement, Wasabi Wallet developer Rafe noted the move is meant to protect the company and project “by minimizing the amount of these hackers and scammers using the coordinator and getting us in trouble.”

EU Parliament Committee Reject Proposal Limits Proof-of-Work Cryptos

The European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee has rejected a proposal that could have effectively banned the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin across the European Union.

The committee voted 30-23 on Monday to keep the provision that would ban BTC out of a draft of the proposed Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework. The provision, added to the draft last week, would limit the use of cryptocurrencies powered via energy-intensive computing processes like Proof-of-Work (PoW) across the EU’s 27 member states.

The document proposed a phase-out plan for popular cryptocurrencies using PoW, which was meant to shift their consensus mechanisms to other less energy-intensive methods like Proof-of-Stake.

What is Proof-of-Stake (PoS)?

To understand a Proof-of-Stake mechanism, we believe it’s easier to understand a Proof-of-Work mechanism first. PoW consensus algorithms gather transactions into blocks and link them together to create a blockchain.

Miners commit computational energy to solve complex mathematical puzzles to add new blocks to the blockchain, and that energy is used to keep the network secure. Miners compete with each other for the base reward associated with each block - known as the coinbase reward - and the transaction fees within them. This competition incentivizes more miners to join the network and improves decentralization.

The more resources committed, the safer a network is. The more miners a network has, the more decentralized it is. The carbon footprint associated with PoW has drawn criticism, with Tesla at one point dropping bitcoin payments over environmental concerns.

A solution is Proof-of-Stake. Under a PoS consensus mechanism, network participants lock coins – their stake in the network – and at particular intervals the network assigns them the right to validate the next block. Read more in CryptoCompare’s guide below.

CCDAS Summit - Get 10% Off for Being a Loyal Reader

CryptoCompare's Digital Asset Summit is returning on 30th March at Old Billingsgate, London. As Europe's flagship institutional summit for digital assets, this is the perfect opportunity to connect with key industry decision-makers and leading names in finance who are adopting and embracing the digital asset revolution.

Time is running out to secure your place at The CryptoCompare Digital Asset Summit! CryptoCompare readers can save 10%  today with code NEWSLETTER10. You can find more information here

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