The Brewing Bitcoin Showdown in Sweden

Sweden’s Bitcoin Party (‘Bitcoinpartiet’), which CoinTelegraph first reported on in July, has published its election manifesto, or its outline for what it aims to achieve in Sweden’s general election on September 14.
The English version of the manifesto is not yet ready, but a Google translation of the text is sufficient for at least understanding the party’s platform:
‘There are tens of thousands bitcoin users in Sweden, and the number is constantly increasing.
‘But Sweden’s banks have their own views on this, and they have on several occasions acted arbitrarily in matters involving bitcoin and bitcoin users.
‘Several companies who are veterans in the fast growing bitcoin market have previously had their accounts and funds temporarily frozen and blocked in various manners … . Customers of companies working with bitcoin have had funds frozen only because they transacted in bitcoin, nothing else.
‘Often such behavior is excused by equating bitcoin and criminal activity of all kinds. That them begins to feel tiring, to use plain language. There is nothing to indicate that a holder of bitcoin would be more criminal than a person with cash in your pocket. Quite the opposite, actually, especially considering that cash is a completely anonymous means of payment, which bitcoin is not.

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2014-09-03.