Day 2 of Nordic Crypto Adoption Week turned the spotlight on Sweden, and the data tells a clear story: crypto is moving firmly into the mainstream.

Adoption is no longer a niche trend driven by early adopters. Instead, it is expanding across demographics and prompting increasing attention by both banks and other institutional players.

Some key data points:

• Massive increase in crypto ownership from 7.4% to 13.4% in the past year.
• 1.135 million adults in Sweden now own crypto (a growth of 500.000 since last year's survey
• 30% of adults in Sweden believe they will own crypto in 2036.

Here are some highlights from the panel discussions, where we were joined by some of the leading voices of the Swedish crypto and blockchain industry.
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ETPs as the gateway  to crypto investment

• Christer Ekman (Coinmotion): Sweden’s unique ETP setup has become the gateway to crypto investment.
• Fati Hakin (Firstblock): ETPs have made it very easy, both from a taxation perspective and in terms of usage and onboarding.

Market opportunities and innovation trends 

• Tobias Lipfert (d-fine): The market demand and being able to trade beyond traditional market hours have a clear attraction.
• Ted Scheiman (Firi): As the older age groups own crypto, the investment size also increases, as they are more affluent than younger age groups.
• Jakob Mikkel Hansen (Nordic Blockchain Association): Unfortunately, there are not a lot of new startups in this field. The numbers have been drastically declining over the past 5-6 years. However, those companies that do exist are revenue-generating, strong players in the industry. We are looking towards some very positive developments in the years ahead.
• Erik Vesterlund (Blockchain Sweden): We knew this would happen. That new company creation would be very difficult with the increased regulation. However, on a positive note, we are seeing increased institutional adoption.

Banks and institutional adoption

• Christer Ekman (Coinmotion): Some banks are really leaning forward, SEB for instance, that are crypto-friendly, and we can see an exciting progression in their upcoming products and services.
• Marco Poblete (Bitwise in Europe): Banks are worried about losing deposits, and one way to circumvent this is to be the issuers of stablecoins. We will also see asset managers of pension platforms look with interest towards crypto and digital assets.

MiCA & regulatory environment 

• Henrik Gradin (Centiglobe): The first MiCA draft was catastrophic. The latest version is quite okay. But regulation is not the problem, it's the change of regulation that is costly. So now with faster innovation, the regulation will change equally rapidly, which is a major hurdle for emerging companies.

• Magnus Jones (Nordic Blockchain Association): I hope we won’t see a MiCA2. We need to get MiCA implementation on track first. MiCA is doing lot of good stuff but you need to be able to afford both MiCA and DORA applications, and most startups can’t afford that. It’s killing innovation.
• Henrik Westerberg (Sapio): We were part of the EU regulatory sandbox and it is key that the regulators understand these new business models. Biggest hurdle for us right now is for regulators to have an understanding of what we actually do.

You can rewatch the webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/live/wS0oRWDs5Ac?si=lAGxkNfTEZcKx9q3

As the Nordic Crypto Adoption Week 2026 continues, the focus now shifts to Finland - where the next set of insights will further shape the regional outlook.

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