A highly anticipated bill seeking to regulate mining and trading in Bitcoin [BTC] and other crypto-assets in Paraguay finally gets the green signal from the country’s Senate as per a recent announcement. Revealing more about the same, Senator Fernando Silva Facetti, one of the co-authors of the bill, said on his official Twitter handle that the bill will be debated in Paraguay’s Chamber of Deputies in the year 2022.
According to the bill, the Industry and Commerce Secretariat will be overseeing crypto mining in the country, with the help of the Anti-Money Laundering Office and the National Securities Commission. In addition to that, the National Electricity Administration will be involved in the activity’s regulation. Interestingly, the cost of electricity in the South American nation is the lowest in the region costing a mere $0.05 per kilowatt-hour, according to Paraguayan Congressman Carlitos Rejala, who further added that nearly 100 percent of energy output originates from hydroelectric sources.
Earlier in July this year, in an interview with a leading media firm, Rejala gave an insight into the draft bill that was released then. The bill hinted at stronger regulatory control from the country’s regulators in terms of bitcoin mining, as well as providing safety to investors from enterprises that offer bitcoin services.
During that time, Rejala said,
“With this we want to welcome the innovation of cryptocurrencies in Paraguay to the world. This is the result of a very strong and arduous teamwork of many experts in the field, both local and foreign.”
Bitcoin nearing its end?
With BTC price has been laying low, academic Eswar Prasad of Cornell University went on to predict an apocalyptic picture of the king coin’s survivability in the near future. Emphasizing that ” bitcoin is not serving well as a medium of exchange” owing to its high volatility and is environmentally destructive”, eventually leading users to look for other crypto-assets with enhanced use cases.
Well, not all is doom and gloom, in a recent survey conducted by CNBC revealed that a staggering 83% of millennial millionaires own cryptocurrencies and that they’re planning to add more in 2022 despite the ongoing price drawdown in the crypto market.