MICA draftsman sells his own NFTs- The Cryptonomist

The MICA, the core legislative framework on the regulation of cryptocurrencies, tokens and financial instruments is in the home stretch, the framework will cover all European Union countries but there are still some knots to unravel regarding NFTs. 

NFT for sale by Stefan Berger

Stefan Berger, the European Parliament’s draftsman on the MiCA cryptocurrency law has recently come into the limelight for putting up for sale an NFT of his own creation involving a Non Fungible Token of a pair of sandals. 

The design created by Beger represents a pair of slides called ‘Bergotten’, symbolizing the first step in a revolution which is that of cryptocurrencies.

Berger, who has put expertise and effort into the implementation of the framework law on the subject, acknowledges the difficulties of understanding the asset in its entirety and hence the delays in the implementation of the MICA, but, at the same time, he tries with this act to emphasize how much there is also a need for NFTs and how similar they are in their nature to digital currencies. 

In this regard, Stefan Berger, member of the European Parliament (MEP) said:

“What was tradable yesterday is tokenized on the blockchain today. Yesterday you wore bathing shoes on your feet, today you carry them in your wallet – in the form of this NFT”.

Agreement reached over MICA for the EU

The agreement over MICA involved the Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission who after months of negotiations reached an agreement that will be drafted and applied to all 27 member countries of the Union.

Berger is opposed to blocking the provision of services for all those currencies that rely on Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining.

If Berger‘s opposing current wins, there would be a concrete ban on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. 

The production of Bitcoin from mining requires a significant amount of electricity and has created negative reactions on the continent among tools at work.

Peter Kerstens, the European Commission’s adviser for technological innovation and cybersecurity policy, said EU lawmakers have a very narrow view on the NFT topic. 

On the sidelines of Korea Blockchain Week, the adviser argued that if a token is issued as a collection or as a series, even though the person who creates it may call it an NFT and each token is unique, regulators cannot consider them as NFTs. Essentially, the criteria for crypto will also apply to NFTs.