Bitcoin Sweden regulation: the blockchain to record property deals
A new project for Bitcoin Sweden regulation has moved to its second phase. In fact, the Sweden’s land registry authority, the so- called Lantmäteriet, wants to use the distributed ledger tech with the main goal of recording property deals.
This project was conducted by the blockchain startup called ChromaWay and the consultancy group Kairos Future, that are also working in partnership with two banks: SBAB and Landshypotek.
Talking about the project’s potential, ChromaWay CEO Henrik Hjelte commented:
“It could be a great benefit for economic growth”.
Also, he said that Sweden is the ideal country to test a distributed ledger system for land titles, because trust in public authorities is higher than elsewhere and it could influence other countries to do the same in the next future.
Thanks to this system, a buyer and seller would open a contract where banks and the land registry can view the workflow of the deal, such as due dates for payments.
“In the blockchain confirmation of each step in the workflow is made with a hash, like the blockchain normally. Everyone has the same information and you can check it yourself,” said Magnus Kempe of Kairos Future.
Another use case for this project is the potential verification of an IOU issued by the bank to its property buyer.
“That part is going to be hidden for the others in the contract. You will only have the hash confirming from the bank that the IOU has been signed,” commented Kempe.
That said, SBAB Bank explaind it has no imminent plans to implement the blockchain:
“Our reason to participate in the project has not been to actually implement the solution in our current processes. But rather an opportunity for us to get a better understanding of the blockchain technology and how it might possibly fit in our future products/offerings.”
Bitcoin Sweden regulation: what is the EU doing?
Recently, the EU passed a directive that puts more weight behind digital signatures; a similar bill has been proposed in Arizona too.
Click here to read more about EU regulation related to bitcoin and blockchain.
A the moment, this land registry project is looking at new ways for working at this issue.
“Actually, the land registry today, they don’t receive much physical paper, they get PDFs of the contracts which are signed electronically so they don’t store the physical contracts. What we are thinking of is, you can actually sign the contract digitally in the blockchain to the land registry, they can award the land titles and then you can throw away the paper so you’re not dependent on the physical archive.”
According to ChromaWay’s Henrik Hjelte, the use of blockchain could be disruprive in order to manage ownership of property and improving transparency in real estate sales.
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Sweden Digital Currency: a new Bitcoin?
Today I want to talk about the new Sweden Digital Currency project.
Sweden’s central bank, in fact, is considering the possibility of issuing its own national virtual currency, but the technology behind it is yet to be revealed.
According to an article published today by The Financial Times, Riksbank wants to create the new virtual currency because of a strong decline in domestic cash use. In fact, according to a report, the amount of notes in circulation has declined 40% since 2009.
Sweden Digital Currency and other solutions
Deputy governor Cecilia Skingsley commented that the central bank wants to test various technologies. Although she did not mention blockchain drectly, the Financial Times explained that the distributed ledger might be one of the options the Sweden bank could consider.
“We need to do the homework because it’s not an option for the public sector to stay on the sidelines and see the private sector cut off access to central bank money for individuals.”
Skingsley said that the digital currency could be issued together with banknotes and coins, but the Riksbank do not want to encourage illegal activity.
Tomorrow Skingsley will give a speech and he might explain more details about the Sweden Digital Currency project.
With this announcement, Sweden will become the latest country to have its own central bank considering to issue a new digital currency, an idea that for the greatest part of nations meant doing several reseatches related to blockchain-based cryptocurrencies.
During the latest few months, the Bank of England has started to discuss and test issuing its own digital currency using the blockchain; and the People’s Bank of China is investigating the idea too.
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Swedish central bank acknowledges benefits of cryptocurrencies
(CoinDesk) Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, has published a brief economic commentary on the impact of digital currencies on the retail payments market.Take-up remains limited
“Households make daily payments using cards and cash totalling 8 million in volume and to a total value of over SEK 3 billion. Even if the use of bitcoin in Sweden were to be much larger than the average exchange value of just over SEK 266,000, this is a relatively low value in relation to other types of payment. At present, there only seem to be around 25 swedish companies accepting Bitcoin.”
Risky but innovative
“It can contribute to meeting new payment needs and to making payments cheaper and more secure. Those who choose to use a particular payment service can be expected to do so because it gives them an added value in relation to other payment services. This also applies to virtual currencies, which can for instance make some cross-border payments simpler, faster and cheaper. Another advantage is if the payer does not need to share sensitive information, such as card number or bank account number, with the payee.”
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
