{"id":130001,"date":"2025-05-26T12:17:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T12:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/?p=130001"},"modified":"2025-05-26T12:17:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T12:17:55","slug":"ethereum-co-founder-responds-to-swedens-cashless-society-rethink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/?p=130001","title":{"rendered":"Ethereum co-founder responds to Sweden\u2019s cashless-society rethink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsAs Sweden reconsiders its push toward a cashless society, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin highlighted the fragility of centralized digital payments and the opportunity presented by decentralized payment alternatives.\u00a0<br \/>\nIn recent years, Sweden has led the charge toward a cashless future, with digital payment platforms becoming widespread. However, as concerns over cyber-threats, civil defense and instability have emerged, Swedish authorities are now actively encouraging citizens to keep some cash.\u00a0<br \/>\nButerin noted the reversal illustrates that while centralized solutions may be efficient, they may not be reliable during times of crisis.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cNordics are walking back the cashless society initiative because their centralized implementation of the concept is too fragile,\u201d Buterin wrote, citing a March 16 article by The Guardian. \u201cCash turns out necessary as a backup.\u201d<br \/>\nSource: Vitalik ButerinHow Ethereum can play a role in a crisis<br \/>\nA former central bank official predicted in 2018 that Sweden would be cashless after seven years. In 2025, the prediction mostly held, with only one in 10 transactions in the country being done in cash, according to The Guardian.<br \/>\nStill, while the Nordic country was an early adopter of digital payments, its government published a brochure encouraging citizens to keep a week\u2019s worth of cash in case of war or crisis. Sweden\u2019s reconsideration has revealed the issue of centralized digital payment infrastructure remaining reliable in times of instability, Buterin suggested.\u00a0<br \/>\nButerin said Ethereum can be a decentralized financial fallback in times of crisis. \u201cEthereum needs to be resilient enough, and private enough, to be able to credibly play this kind of role,\u201d Buterin said.\u00a0<br \/>\nWhen asked if fully offline zero-knowledge technology-secured private transfers were close to practical implementation, Buterin said the tech know-how is already there, but there are still limitations:\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cWe basically know how to do it, but with the limitation that any solution depends on trusted hardware and\/or post hoc enforcement against double-spenders.\u201d\u00a0<br \/>\nRelated: Vitalik Buterin proposes partially stateless nodes for Ethereum scaling<br \/>\nCrypto payments exec thinks crypto won\u2019t replace fiat<br \/>\nWhile crypto payment solutions are becoming more common, Mercuryo co-founder and CEO Petr Kozyakov has said that crypto will not replace fiat.\u00a0<br \/>\nKozyakov told Cointelegraph in an interview that crypto payments are seeing an increase in demand and adoption.<br \/>\nHowever, the executive said that instead of cryptocurrencies fully replacing fiat money as a payment method, the two payment options will coexist.\u00a0<br \/>\nKozyakov told Cointelegraph that people will use crypto when it\u2019s easier and more practical.<br \/>\nMagazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs: Inside story<a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/ethereum-alternative-sweden-cashless-plans?utm_source=rss_feed&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"feedzy-rss-link-icon\" rel=\"noopener\">Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsAs Sweden reconsiders its push toward a cashless society, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin highlighted the fragility of centralized digital payments and the opportunity presented by decentralized payment alternatives.\u00a0&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130001"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}