While certain parts of the world are pushing away the decentralized currency, others are planning to launch their own. Just recently, Venezuela came out with the first ever state-issued virtual currency named Petro. Following their footsteps, it seems Sweden could be launching their own cryptocurrency dubbed e-Krona.
Sweden is one of the countries which is headed full force towards a cashless society. The country’s youth has already surrounded their daily lives around e-payment systems. Riksbank - the Swedish central bank is proposing to introduce e-Krona and make it the same as the nation’s regular currency, but at the same time, wants to restrict its use to small transactions between consumers, companies, and authorities. The central bank has also informed that they will implement a clear approach to KYC and AML policies involving e-Krona.
Eva Julin, who is the project leader of the country’s new cryptocurrency confirmed that Sweden has decided to base e-Krona on IOTA. He also informed that the central bank is currently in negotiation with 19 companies which will also help to realize the nation’s new dreams.
Now, For those of you who don’t know, IOTA uses a distributed ledger technology called Tangle and doesn’t have any blocks, chains, or miners. This compels any participant who wants to make transactions using the cryptocurrency, to take active participation in the consensus of the network.
Following this development in Sweden, a Twitter account Iota News commented:
“#Sweden may be among one of the first countries to implement a national cryptocurrency with #IOTA. But before the Nordic nation goes full cashless, the Riksbank stressed several issues that a national #cryptocurrency would have to address!”
Sweden is not inside the Eurozone, and hence it is free from any conflict with the European Central Bank. For example, the country of Estonia had also planned to launch their own cryptocurrency, but ECB intervened and stopped them. As per statement put forth by ECB president, Mario Draghi - no Eurozone state can issue a new national currency which can compete against the Euro.