4,000 Crypto Friendly Swedish Citizens Ditching Cash For Microchips

Sweden has taken a further step towards the stereotypical future that has been portrayed in so many 80s films by inserting a microchip under their skin. Yes you read that right as the crypto friendly and cashless society is well known for accepting new technologies and more than 4,000 citizens from Sweden will now be using microchips to pay for their, food, drinks, holidays and so on.

In addition, the citizens taking part in the program will be able to replace their IDs, gym cards, trains tickets and more with the microchips. Cash is expected to disappear at more than 50 percents of the nation’s shops by 2025, Sweden is revolutionising how people handle data and money.

According to a survey conducted throughout the nation last year, 13 percent have been reported to actually use cash for recent purchases at the time. This was down from 40 percent in 2010. It isn’t just Sweden that is seeing a decrease in cash usage as the US sees around 70 percent using cash on a weekly basis. This might seem like a lot but this percentage is continuously decreasing.

Back to Sweden, buses and trains no longer take any cash and nationwide rail company SJ accepts hand swipes for payment. Nearly half of Sweden’s 1,400 banks no longer take any cash deposits. In the north of Stockholm, the home appliance firm IKEA went cash free for a short time last year after they noticed only 1 percent of their customers were actually using cash.

When it comes to cryptocurrencies in the growing digital economy, one of the researchers at Stockholm School of Economics specialising in Bitcoin and crypto, Claire Ingram Bohusz says “There’s a very high-level of knowledge about it here, and a high-level of digital competence in the fintech space.” This is opening the door for all kinds of digital innovation.

A marketing manager at Bitcoin ATM operator General Bytes, Martijn Wismeijer keeps enough Bitcoin under his skin (literally) to pay for ber and coffee. Speaking to CNBC Wismeijer said, “I know a lot of people that do have substantial amounts of storage. But they’re a bit more discreet about it and not the whole world knows that they’ve got some crypto.”