The Swedish government urged to accelerate the release of the digital version of state Fiat currency — electronic crown.
Since the state is moving rapidly towards a cashless future, there are concerns that without a “secured state” of the digital currency citizens will turn to the means of payment offered by “private agents”.
Sweden gets rid of paper money
Last year, the Swedish CB Riksbank published a report on the prospects of launching the government digital alternative to the national currency of the state crown. The document describes in detail how it will look and operate electronic coin.
Last Friday on the Bank’s website has a new report that calls on the government to postpone the planned electronic edition of the crown at an earlier date.
“If the marginalization of cash will continue, electronic Krona will be able to provide public access to government provided the means of payment”, — says the report of the Riksbank.
If such digital representation of an existing Fiat currency is not created, the public can look for a solution for a more convenient means of payment among those that are “private agents” — that is the wording contained in the report.
These private agents could be companies like PayPal. Another option — it may be the company behind many existing public cryptocurrencies.
“Inactive in the face of recent events and entirely to give the payments market in the hands of private agents, in the end, to make the public totally dependent on private payment solutions, making it more difficult for the Riksbank to develop a robust and efficient payment system”, — stated in the document of the Central Bank.
Riksbank proposes to accelerate the start of the pilot scheme for the electronic crown, and came to implementation in 2019. In this case, if the initiative is approved by the public, the emergence of digital currencies in circulation can be expected by 2021.
According to the magazine Fortune, the need to accelerate work in this direction is due to the high pace with which Sweden has become increasingly “cashless” society. So, in the country often refuse to accept paper money — it happens in banks, stores, restaurants. Moreover, according to a recent study, only 13% of the Swedes paid for the last thing they purchased with cash. In 2010, there were 39%.
Swedish the reality is that citizens are not willing to keep up with the times and use new technologies, they risk being “excluded” from the economy.
What will turn a digital Fiat currency for cryptocurrency market?
There are many opinions regarding the impact of digital Fiat currency for virtual currency based on blockchain such as bitcoin. To give a definite answer difficult.
Of course, there is a risk that governments will be able to convince the public that by creating a kind of imitation of bitcoins they will be able to solve all the complicated problems of Fiat banking systems.
Trust in governments and Central banks — something that is not made in cryptosuite, remains one of the features of modern society. Also, many believe that the equipment to national currencies some of the obvious advantages of digital currency can bring in huge cash flows in a digital currency like bitcoin.
On the other hand, by creating a purely digital version of the currency the government likely would significantly reduce potential barriers to access bitcoin. As you know, existing banking arrangements usually require at least a good half week to create a new account in the broker company or the stock exchange. With the state of digital currency to exchange their savings into more “sophisticated” money, what is a bitcoin, it is already easier.
And yet it’s hard to believe that governments waited so long to create the digital currency: no work with the technical architecture of bitcoin or other capabality and e-crown ready. However, essentially, it would be a state database transaction without the blockchain, and not about a new word in the organization of monetary circulation.
Recall that in may it became known that the issue of government “electronic Frank” is regarded in Switzerland. In August the completion of the first phase of proof of concept state of the digital currency was set in Thailand is March 2019. At the same time, the researcher of the people’s Bank of China in its report, published in the spring indicated that the state should create a digital currency that has elements of cryptocurrency, and instead “focus on the digitalization of Fiat currencies.”
