EU’s GDPR Guidance Threatens Web3 Development: Time for Adjustment

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has recently published guidelines about blockchain technology processing under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These guidelines have drawn significant attention and criticism due to their potentially destructive impact on permissionless blockchains. The core issue lies in guideline 63, which advocates for deleting entire blockchain networks when deletion is deemed impossible at a single node level. This translates into a ‘kill-switch’ for all public blockchains including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many others that process trillions of dollars annually.