The governor of Sweden's key bank, the Sveriges Riksbank, has dismissed Bitcoin (BTC) as an altogether far-fetched alternative to government-backed fiat currencies.

Speaking at a banking conference in Stockholm, Sveriges Riksbank governor Stefan Ingves argued, "Private money commonly collapses sooner or later on." In a further disparaging remark, he claimed, "Sure, yous can get rich past trading in bitcoin, but it's comparable to trading in stamps."

Yet Ingves' view of Bitcoin's weaknesses as a currency, he has taken its popularity amidst investors seriously. Highlighting consumer interests and money laundering equally being of detail business organization, the fundamental banker conceded this June that the cryptocurrency had gotten "big plenty" to merit close attention from regulators, central bankers and lawmakers across the globe.

Nor has Ingves' low estimation of Bitcoin prevented the Riksbank from co-opting its underlying engineering for the benefit of its own fundamental bank digital currency development project. Sweden's e-krona uses a proof-of-concept based on Corda, a distributed ledger technology solution from R3. The latest update on the e-krona pilot is that experiments are progressing, involving simulated participants to cooperating with real-world actors, specifically Sweden'southward retail bank chain, Handelsbanken.

Related: Bitcoin'south rising popularity volition lead to more regulation, says Riksbank

While the Riksbank's arroyo is in line with most central banks and governments, this week has witnessed El salvador's unprecedented government-mandated adoption of Bitcoin equally legal tender. Despite Salvadorans' anxieties almost their government's move, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson and whistleblower Edward Snowden have this week claimed that other nation-states could also somewhen contain the coin into their own monetary policy.