The bill was approved with 104 votes in favor, two against and 71 abstentions.
In her declaration of vote, deputy Florbela Malaquias, from PHA, highlighted that illegalizing the activity and seizing the equipment is equivalent to excluding the country from the artificial intelligence market and a significant portion of the growing world economy and limiting the possibility of scientific research in this area.
From the UNITA parliamentary group, deputy Albertina Ngolo, said that the abstention was due to the fact that they understood that legislating on the matter is a "complex challenge" due to the decentralized and global nature of these technologies.
For the opposition deputy, a clear understanding of the technologies behind cryptocurrencies is necessary to ensure that laws are effective and do not harm technological innovation.
João Pilamosi Domingos, from the MPLA, in his declaration of vote, considered that the guarantee of monetary and fiscal sovereignty is of utmost importance, as well as the role of the Angolan central bank as the only legal authority for the issuance of metallic notes and coins in physical and digital formats, with no other entity competing for this task.
This proposed law prohibits the exercise of cryptocurrency mining activities throughout the national territory and the professional services associated with them and limits the circulation of virtual currencies not issued by central banks.
Cryptocurrency mining is the process of validating and entering transactions into a shared database that uses a specific technology, called 'blockchain'. It has associated high energy consumption with great environmental impact.
