Swedish Member of Parliament Rickard Nordin (C) has asked thevfinance minister to diversify foreign currency holdings into Bitcoin.
A recent written question submitted to the Swedish Riksdag is sparking renewed debate about how the country manages its foreign exchange holdings. The query, posed by Member of Parliament Rickard Nordin (C), centers on whether Sweden should consider including BTC in its official foreign exchange reserve.
“In light of this, I would like to ask Minister of Finance Elisabeth Svantesson whether she and the government are prepared to consider including Bitcoin in the foreign exchange reserve,” reads the statement Nordin addressed to the finance minister. He underscores that some nations, most prominently El Salvador, have already established bitcoin as legal tender.
He further notes how central banks worldwide are increasingly discussing Bitcoin and its influence on monetary policy, indicating that the concept of holding BTC could become integral to broader financial preparedness strategies.
Will Sweden Buy Bitcoin?
Although there are currently no Swedish regulations that would permit Bitcoin to be included in the foreign exchange reserve, discussion on the matter has intensified in various parts of the world. Nordin’s written question also references developments in the United States, where Bitcoin has appeared in more formal contexts, including exchange-traded funds and company purchases, as Nordin points out.
Notably, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on March 6 establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which the administration is now seeking to expand in a “budget-neutral” manner according to the text of the order.
Nordin’s initiative arrives at a time when Sweden’s official stance toward BTC has been decidedly cautious. In March 2024, Riksbank Governor Erik Thedéen remarked that Bitcoin has no place in Sweden’s financial system, describing it as a case of “the less the better” for the country.
This position echoes previous calls from November 2021, when Swedish authorities urged the European Union to consider banning the energy-intensive proof-of-work mining method. Erik Thedéen and Björn Risinger—then leading the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, respectively—further sought to halt new crypto-mining projects in Sweden and to prevent companies reliant on proof-of-work from marketing themselves or their activities as sustainable.
By putting forward his question, Nordin aims to place the issue of Bitcoin’s role in national reserves more firmly on the political agenda. His inquiry also probes how Sweden is evaluating worldwide trends around digital assets and asks the government to assess the opportunities and risks of bringing BTC into its foreign exchange reserve structure.
Written questions in the Riksdag serve as a mechanism both for oversight and for injecting fresh issues into policy discussions. How Minister Svantesson chooses to respond remains an open question, and it is still unclear whether the idea will gain traction or be dismissed.
At press time, BTC traded at $80,016.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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