Bitcoin Isn’t a Currency, According to Sweden’s Central Bank

The Swedish central bank, Sveriges Riksbank (“Riksbank”), has gone to Twitter to dispute whether Bitcoin is a currency. Bitcoin must meet three severe conditions to be regarded as a currency, according to Riksbank’s official Twitter account: Operate as a custodian (store of value). Offer a means of payment. Be a unit of account. While the central bank clarifies each point in the tweets, it eventually concludes that Bitcoin and other cryptos are assets rather than currencies. Är kryptovalutor pengar? Nej. I den här tråden förklaras varför Riksbanken definierar till exempel Bitcoin och Ethereum som tillgångar och inte valutor. #Krypto #Bitcoin #BTC #Ethereum #Riksbanken 1/9 🧵 — Sveriges riksbank (@riksbanken) May 20, 2022 According to Sweden’s central bank, Bitcoin fails as a “value preserver” due to its excessive price volatility. According to the bank, users of a currency should have confidence that the item they are about to purchase will remain essentially price stable over time. The bank also questions Bitcoin’s legitimacy as a payment method, claiming that there is “no specific statistic on how many enterprises accept Bitcoin” as payment. The bank uses Coinmap’s global directory of Bitcoin ATMs — roughly 29,500 — as a proxy for Visa, which is accepted by over 60 million retailers worldwide. According to the Riksbank, Bitcoin also fails as a unit of account due to its incapacity to serve as a store of value or a means of p...