STOCKHOLM (Dispatches) - The governor of Sweden’s central bank has questioned the staying power of currencies that don’t have the backing of governments at a bank conference in Stockholm.
Riksbank governor, Stefan Ingves, said that “private money usually collapses sooner or later” - and also compared trading Bitcoin to trading stamps, according to a Bloomberg report.
It follows comments he made earlier this year when he said that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are unlikely to escape regulatory oversight as their popularity grows.
The digital currency has received high profile endorsements from Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk. However, not everyone is in favor of it.
Musk also put his support behind Ethereum in July when he said he had invested in it. The digital currency’s price increased as a response to this.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has become the latest country to legalize Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
A bill was passed in a near-unanimous vote and will now need to be signed by the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.
The second-largest country in Europe after Russia is the latest in recent weeks to set up a framework of rules for digital currencies. This follows El Salvador’s move to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.
Congressman Gabriel Silva also announced this week the government of Panama was seeking to make the country compatible with the blockchain, crypto assets and the internet, and has introduced a bill to accept it as legal tender too.