@motspy

🧵 SWEDEN, THE E-KRONA, ALGORAND & HEDERA Sweden is reopening the debate around a digital krona. But there is an important piece of history worth revisiting: @Algorand and @hedera have already featured in research examining different architectures for a Swedish CBDC. What happened, and what could come next? On October 15, 2026, Sweden’s Riksbank submitted a communication to parliament’s Committee on Finance, urging preparations for a possible digital krona to be reconsidered. The reasons go well beyond payment technology. The Riksbank points to several developments: • The planned digital euro • The growing use of foreign-currency stablecoins • Monetary sovereignty • The resilience of national payment infrastructure A digital krona could also support offline payments during power or telecom outages. @Reuters highlighted another dimension: national security. Sweden increasingly views payment infrastructure as part of its total-defence strategy. The ability to make payments during cyberattacks, military threats or power outages is becoming a strategic concern. This is not Sweden’s first attempt. The Riksbank launched its e-krona pilot in 2019. The technical project was completed in 2023. The tested solution was based on R3 Corda, with the Riksbank and approved participants operating nodes. Algorand and Hedera were not part of that pilot. Here is where the story gets interesting. In June 2024, a research paper titled: “Potential Climate Impact of Retail CBDC Models” was published in the Sveriges Riksbank Working Paper Series. Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology compared the potential energy consumption of different CBDC architectures. Three conceptual models were examined: • Highly centralized • Semi-centralized • Decentralized In its July 2024 summary of the research, the @AlgoFoundation identified two blockchain networks representing different models: @Algorand for the decentralized architecture. @hedera for the semi-centralized architecture. The distinction matters. Algorand represented a model emphasizing distributed infrastructure and resilience. Hedera represented a more limited-participant architecture, combining high throughput with low estimated electricity consumption. The study examined architectural trade-offs. It was not a competition to select a blockchain for the e-krona. Fast forward to October 2026. The Riksbank is once again raising the possibility of a digital krona. No new technical selection has been announced. The previous e-krona pilot remains completed. But both Algorand and Hedera have a documented place in Sweden’s earlier CBDC architecture research. That does not establish a partnership, a new test or a future role. If Sweden evaluates technical architectures again, however, this earlier research provides an interesting reference point. The question is not simply how to build a digital krona. It is which infrastructure model can best balance resilience, control, efficiency and monetary sovereignty.