One who is skeptical is the economist Klas Eklund at the law firm Mannheimer and Swartling. He admits that the underlying technology, the blockchain, is interesting, but believes that the currencies themselves are not.
– You can’t shop for them and if you try, it’s expensive and takes an enormous amount of time. In addition, they use a lot of electricity to produce and it is not possible to pay taxes with them, for example. They are not currencies. At most investment objects that go up and down very sharply because there is no underlying value.
According to Eklund, a bitcoin is nothing more than a collection of ones and zeros whose value is entirely determined by speculation about where people think it will go. A description that is not shared by Robin Teigland, professor of digital innovation and entrepreneurship at Chalmers:
– For many people in the world, cryptocurrencies have a value and there are solutions that allow you to pay with them, both quickly and without such high fees. For the 72 percent of the world’s population who live in societies where there is no trust and confidence in the government and central bank, cryptocurrencies become an alternative.
