Rostin Behnam, chair of the US Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee, or CFTC, mentioned the Ethereum blockchain’s transition to proof-of-stake might assist cut back crypto’s power utilization, however hinted laws would possible nonetheless be wanted to deal with 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 “vital power” required of mining cryptocurrencies. With out mentioning the Merge by identify, the CFTC chair mentioned the crypto invoice at present being thought of by lawmakers would require a report on power utilization that might result in future coverage dialogue and “incentives to maneuver away from carbon-intensive power sources.”

“We’ve all heard the statistics in regards to the wonderful quantity of power used to mine cash,” mentioned Behnam. “I might say that an occasion occurred final evening with Ethereum which goes to scale back power consumption — a step in the suitable route, however definitely not resolving the issue.”

In his written testimony, Behnam said he was in favor of passing the Digital Commodities Client 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 — might be addressed by giving the company “a lens into the buying and selling platform” somewhat than counting on customers to carry enforcement circumstances.

“[The bill] would supply the authority to the CFTC to manage markets. This volatility, the fraud, the manipulation — a lot of it could most likely go away as a result of we now have a regulator, a cop on the beat, and this is able to deter exercise by unhealthy actors.”

Crypto invoice wants clarification on ‘digital commodity’ — Sheila Warren

The Ethereum Merge came about on Thursday, marking the blockchain’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake and successfully chopping the community’s power consumption by an estimated 99.95%. The worth of Ether (ETH) fell underneath $1,500 within the hours following the occasion, with Cointelegraph reporting many crypto-mintednonfungible tokens with a Merge theme.