Sweden Appoints Cryptoskeptic As New Central Bank Governor

With Erik Thedéen as its new governor and a longtime bitcoin skeptic, Sweden central bank has announced that Thedéen will take the reins at Riksbank on July 1.

Stefan Ingves, the bank’s previous CEO since 2006, will step down in favor of Thedéen, the director-general of Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA).

The former official of the Ministry of Finance and CEO of the Stockholm Stock Exchange will begin on January 1 and attend the February 2023 monetary policy meeting. he said. For the next six years, Thedéen will be in charge.

By virtue of his previous experience in managing financial institutions and organizations, Thedeén is well-suited to serve as the new Governor of the Riksbank, according to a statement from its General Council.

In the crypto community, Thedéen’s appointment has been met with skepticism.

According to crypto analyst Eric Wall, the new governor’s appointment couldn’t have come at a worse time for the markets, which are reeling from a spate of bad news. Thedéen has been referred to as “ignorant” before by Wall.

On the European Securities and Markets Authority (EMSA) board, Thedéen advocated for the bloc-wide banning of proof of work cryptocurrency mining, claiming that the industry’s energy consumption has become a national issue in his own country.

This year, the Financial Times quoted Thedéen as saying:

Because of the significant amount of renewable energy used in mining, Bitcoin has now become a national issue in Sweden. It would be ironic if Sweden’s long coastline’s wind power was used to mine Bitcoins.”

Approximately 0.53% of the world’s electricity is consumed by Bitcoin, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CECI).

PoW, a consensus mechanism that rewards a network of supercomputers, known as miners, for validating blockchain transactions, is used to create Bitcoin.

It has been argued that the method wastes energy and contributes to climate change by experts and economists alike. There has been a shift in the second-largest cryptocurrency to a more energy-efficient Proof of Stake protocol for Ethereum (PoS)

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