Sweden’s Central Bank To Begin Testing National Cryptocurrency

The Swedish Central Bank will establish a test group for its potential digital currency – the e-krona. It will run for a year and should confirm if there’s an actual need case for launching a digital krona.

Testing The E-Krona

Recently reported by local news, the Riksbank is ready to launch a group to examine the potential e-krona. The participants will play out different scenarios to determine if the digital currency’s performance is sufficient and reliable. A statement from the bank outlines the various requirements that the e-krona needs to address before launching:

“The aim of the project is to show how an e-krona could be used by the general public. A digital krona should be simple, user-friendly as well as fulfill critical requirements for security and performance.”

The project will run on the blockchain technology in “an isolated test environment.” The participants will store the e-krona in a digital wallet. They will use a mobile app to make payments, deposits, and withdrawals. Additionally, users will also make payments via cards and smartwatches.

The bank will run the test group for a year – until February 2021.

The Swedish central bank will also collaborate with other countries to discuss potential cases for issuing their cryptocurrency. To do so, the Riksbank will enter a dedicated group with the banks of Britain, the Eurozone, Japan, and Switzerland.

E-Krona – Complement For Cash

The report also outlines the real purpose of the potential digital krona. It informs that the Swedish population has stopped using cash as the primary source of payment transactions. More specifically, the percentage of people paying with cash has dropped from 40 to 13 between 2010 and 2018.

Despite that, though, the Riksbank doesn’t plan to replace cash entirely if it launches the digital krona. Instead, the central bank said that it would be used as a complement. It will continue to issue banknotes and coins, as long as there’s a demand in the country.

Deutsche bank recently also touched upon the topic of cash necessity in today’s society. It concluded that some banks, debit, and credit card providers, and governments are attempting to eliminate cash from daily usage. However, their document ultimately refuted the option of “the end of cash.”