Half Of The Swedish Population Owns Bitcoin - Without Knowing It!

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It was reported last year that all Norwegians indirectly owns Bitcoin. That is because the country's oil fund owns shares in the American IT company Microstrategy, which in turns own Bitcoin. Now, we also know that a large part the population in Sweden also owns Bitcoin. Without knowing about it.

The Seventh AP Fund, or the AP7 is the government alternative on the Swedish pension market. They provide the fund AP7 Såfa. AP7 Såfa has as many as five million Swedish savers, and this is where Bitcoin comes in, because AP7 Såfa owns shares in a couple of companies that have invested in Bitcoin.

AP7 Såfa owns approximately ~0.09% of all the shares in Tesla, which we all know got a lot of attention when they bought 48K BTC this winter. Those Bitcoins are worth roughly $3 billion today. AP7 Såfa, and by extension around five million Swedish pension savers, earns around 43 Bitcoin to a value of ~$2.7 million for that reason.

Divided by 5 million, it means that AP7 Såfa's pension savers own around $0,60 in Bitcoin, or ~940 satoshis. Note that AP7 Såfa also owns 0.1% of the American payment company Square, so the pension savers are likely to own more than $0,60 in Bitcoin each.

  • What do you think about this?

I mean, take my grandmother, or my mother. None of them would ever want to have anything to do with crypto. They're just not those type of people. You could give them a million dollars worth of crypto and they wouldn't take it even if you showed them exactly how to cash it out.

They wouldn't use it because they're simply not interested. My grandmother thinks that "the internet will crash" so having money "online" or "on an internet bank" is something she doesn't believe in. She use cash and pays for everything with money you can "hold in your hands" as she explains.

  • Do you think it's wise to involve so many peoples savings indirectly in crypto?

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22 comments
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Well, the connection is too loose for me to call it as owning some of $BTC.

The profits are collected by the fund managers in any way :)

Nevertheless, thanks for bringing this aspect of crypto ownership to our attention.

@tipu curate

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I somewhat agree with you, as the savers are simply saving their money in a company that happens to invest in other companies that holds crypto. What about the risks that people like my grandmother face while saving their money though?

She doesn't save money in that fund, but she would never even think about it if she heard the word "crypto". There are a lot of people in her shoes, having the same feelings and many of them are likely to not know about this.

Do you think it's ethical or whatever we should call it?
Do you think it makes a difference at all, that people indirectly holds btc?

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Aha, your thoughts went deeper than mine :)

As for your grandmother. I assume she trusts the government (fund managers) and believes that they are doing their best for her.

Next, is it ethical? For me and from this narrow point of view, it is. Yet, I am personally in crypto for the last eight years. I was in mutual funds before crypto and got out of them with mixed feelings and success.

When asking about the general public and if it is ethical for them? Yes, again. Crypto shouldn't be seen as something illegal or shady. Every financial scheme can be used as a scam, every! It depends on the people who run it. Even guns are just a heap of metal without a person pressing the trigger.

Does it make a difference? No, it doesn't. Or, it does. It depends on how you see traditional investments in stocks or other funds or indexes. Many of these options are quite shady and unethical for me. Oil, diamonds, big pharma, the arms industry, ...

Does this Swedish fund own any shares from companies that are active in mining, drilling, chemistry, pharmacy, weapons industry? I bet it does. Maybe not directly yet in the same way as you've outlined it, the connections are there. Is this ethical?

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Crypto shouldn't be seen as something illegal or shady

I think you hit the nail on the head here. I speak from experience because I could have gotten on crypto much earlier but when I first heard about it, I thought it was a scam and I would lose all of my money so I didn't want anything to do with it.

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(Edited)

True.

In fact, crypto was intentionally marked as something bad to delay its mainstream acceptance for as long as possible.

Yet, one should always be careful and don't go full in. Many crypto projects were scams. Even those who didn't want to be at first :)

Good luck with all your involvements.

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Isn't Sweden supposed to be the promised land of electronic payments?

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Not sure.. It's crazy to pay taxes on crypto here in Sweden though. The worst system ever.

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I think there is definitely a risk associated with that, but that's what funds do "for a living" all the time so I guess it's not that different.

Either way it's an interesting analysis and I think it's yet another evidence that crypto is moving towards mass adoption.

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I think it's yet another evidence that crypto is moving towards mass adoption.

I totally agree with that.

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Looked at that way, most people with a retirement account indirectly own some Bitcoin since those accounts often have an S&P 500 index fund as part of their holdings.

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Your grandma is too tied to the old money. I guess at some age it's difficult to grasp such a concept anymore. I believe Norway is one of the smartest countries in Europe and the most advanced one when it comes to tech. Sweden's approach towards money is a bit communist the way I see it.

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Your grandma is too tied to the old money.

She sure is. She is 81 years old and don't believe in tech. It's impossible to change her mindet and I think there are a lot of others out there who are similar as well.

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I think it is fine to involve people indirectly into crypto. After all the current weight of BTC in the account would only affect them slightly even if it were to crash. If the fund decided to have a heavy weighting into crypto, then I might be worried but the current weighting will have very little fluctuations in value.

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That is very true and a great point. I wouldn't risk my savings if it where all crypto and I would definitely want them to openly state if they were investing in companies tied to crypto.

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It's like that "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon" It'll soon get to the point that everybody through one entity or another, will have a crypto connection. It will become a part of their lives and they won't even know it.

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It will become a part of their lives and they won't even know it.

Yeah, the world isn't really ready for crypto so people will get tied to it without knowing it.

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It's very cool, but perhaps a bit of a stretch, but I'll take it. Thing is, some of that 50% of the population is actually going to look at the investment reports and figure out where their money is actually working. And a few of those will realize that Bitcoin (which they MAY have heard of) has become mainstream enough that it's part of a major pension scheme.

=^..^=

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