The European Data Protection Board's latest draft guidelines could make Bitcoin illegal in the EU
PANews reported on June 5 that according to Bitcoin.com reports, Alexandre Stachtchenko, chief strategy officer of French crypto exchange Paymium, warned that the latest draft guidelines of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) may make Bitcoin illegal in the European Union. The draft treats the blockchain public key as personal data and requires that it can be deleted under certain conditions, but the technical characteristics of the blockchain make the data immutable.
The EDPB made it clear that "technical infeasibility cannot be used as a reason for non-compliance with the GDPR" and noted that if fine-grained data deletion is not possible, it may be necessary to "delete the entire blockchain". Stachtchenko criticized this position as being detached from technical realities and that anonymization schemes are not recognized by existing regulations. The public consultation period ends on June 9, and if the draft passes, Bitcoin could be considered illegal because it fails to meet data deletion requests.