In 2015, Cointelegraph reproted that Sweden is to become the first ever cashless country in the world. A study conducted by KTH Royal Institute of Techonlogy, around six banks were refusing to operate with cash. Naturally, Bitcoin was rumored to have great future in the country’s plans for becoming fully “cashless” society and first Scandinavian country to achieve this goal.
Now, two years later, in 2017, Sweden is on its way to make this step come true. According to Cointelegraph:
“900 of Sweden’s 1,600 bank branches no longer store cash, and they will no longer accept cash deposits. There is a gradual decrease in numbers of ATMs, and the circulation of the Swedish krona fell from 106 bln in 2009 to 60 bln in 2016.”
Just like Japan, Denmark and Estonia considering the launch of a domestic cryptocurrency, Sweden is also thinking about the introduction of one, or the government backing up Bitcoin as a leading solution to turning Sweden into the first Scandinavian country into a “cashless kingdom”.
Swedish count mainly on their credit and debit cards to pay for goods and services, so the launch of a domestic digital currency or the backing of Bitcoin by the government may be one of the major reasons why Sweden can find great success in becoming fully digital with payments in the near future.
The scale and anonymity of Bitcoin is similar to that of cash, with the exception that Bitcoin does not require customers to have a bank account and is also operated online through smartphones. The ease that digital cryptocurrencies offer and the fading popularity of cash are also two major reasons why Sweden and other Scandinavian countries have proved to be very much pro-Blockchain and pro-cryptocurrencies.