Are We On The Verge Of A Cashless Society?

Coin Roll Hunters. We buy rolls/boxes of coin usually from financial institutions, search the coin for rarities/silver etc, and return what's left (to a different bank or CU). I've been doing this since I was a teen over 40 years ago and have searched hundreds of thousands of dollars in coin.

Look here...

http://goccf.com/t/376510

I think it is interesting that the cash in circulation in Sweden decreased by more than 50% from the end of 2007 until 31 January 2018.

But since Jan 2018 the number of banknotes in circulation of all the denominations except for the 500kr (~ 50 Euros) have continued to diminish, but there has been an increase in 500kr notes by a third. The percentage of Swedish banknotes in circulation by value in the 500kr banknote is 77.5%, which is similar to the US where over 80% of the total value of all banknotes in circulation is of the $100 denomination.

Since 31 January 2018 (circulation as of end of June 2020)
20 kr : -1.29% (49.7 million bills)
50 kr : -5.13% (17.8 million bills)
100 kr : -2.82% (28.3 million bills)
200 kr : -16.18% (23.8 million bills)
500 kr : +33.48% (85.1 million bills)
1000 kr : -16.15% (2.9 million bills)
Total : 207.6 million bills

The 200kr banknote has existed in Sweden for less than 5 years. Personally, I assumed that as Swedes used less and less cash that they would adopt the new 200kr banknote like Americans and Canadians who use the $20 bill. But that turned out not to be true at all as Swedes have largely avoided the new denomination. Norway circulates the 200kr and the 500kr banknotes in equal numbers.

In addition, the circulation of coins in Sweden is now above 80 coins per inhabitant. while that is a very low number compared to other countries, it is still somewhat surprising given the Swedish move away from cash.

On 6 April 2011, the Riksbank announced the names of the persons whose portraits would decorate the new series of banknotes that would be introduced in 2015. A study with widespread distribution said that 2023 would be the earliest that Sweden could go completely cashless.

Is it possible that the Swedes are hoarding a little cash in fear of the government stopping printing new banknotes? Many Americans believe it is irresponsible not to keep some cash in their home in the event of an emergency. That would explain the increase in the 500kr denomination.

I am still a little confused as to why the Riksbank still has the 1000kr banknote. They are only circulating 2.9 million notes which is a token amount. I still wonder if they have vaults full of this denomination in case the banking system crashes like it did in 1991.

When the power went out in my area two summers ago none of the stores were open (except those full power generators). Neither HVAC nor point of sale terminals work without power.

When it is > 90°F and ~ 90% RH, no one wants to be inside a poorly ventilated store.

When POS is down, no one is going to trust that minimum wage worker to tender the cash sale properly when they never learned to calculate totals by hand.

I believe we will be cashless very soon. A lady I know, wanted to cash in her change, which she had just over $1,000 worth, and the bank refused it. The bank even has signs up stating that they cannot take change. It's like, if we're in a "change shortage", you'd think the banks would be happy to exchange it. I can say though, ever since the great change shortage of 2020, I'm catching a lot more silver out of the rolls. I opened 4 different rolls of pennies, and every single roll had nothing but wheat pennies in them. So, it seems like the good coins are starting to appear more and more. Better for us coin collectors! #9786;#65039;

The solar flare of September 1-2, 1859 was the largest geomagnetic storm on record. People could read newspapers in the NE United States by the light of the aurora. Telegraph systems all over the world began to fail. On July 22, 2012, a similar size storm narrowly missed the Earth (by as little as six days).

The Solar flare was only 4 years before the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864 which created the national currency.

Currency in Circulation: Volume
(in billions of notes, as of December 31 of each year)

Year	$1	$2	$5	$10	$20	$50	$100	Total
2019	12.7	1.3	3.2	2.1	9.5	1.8	14.2	44.9
2018	12.4	1.3	3.1	2.0	9.4	1.8	13.4	43.4

Personally, I think the idea of eliminating cash is ridiculous. However, we should at least be able to stabilize the amount of cash in circulation. At least for banknotes < $100.

From 2018 to 2019 there was a net increase of 812 million $100 banknotes, and a net increase of 742 million banknotes of smaller denominations. At this point we should only be replacing worn out banknotes of denominations smaller than $100. The $100 denomination is different, because of it's worldwide use.

Largest denomination of each currency (equivalent in Euros)
€511.29 : 1,000 Deutsche mark
€453.78 : 1,000 Dutch guilder
€363.36 : 5,000 Austrian schilling
€247.89 : 10,000 Belgian franc
€168.19 : 1,000 Finnish markka
€144.81 : 500 Lithuanian litas
€142.29 : 100 * Latvian lat
€126.97 : 100 Irish pound
€123.95 : 5,000 Luxembourgish franc
€76.22 : 500 French franc
€60.10 : 10,000 Spanish peseta
€51.65 : 100,000 * Italian lira
€49.88 : 10,000 Portuguese escudo
€46.59 : 20 Maltese lira
€41.73 : 10,000 Slovenian tolar
€34.17 : 20 Cypriot pound
€31.96 : 500 Estonian kroon
€33.19 : 1,000 * Slovak koruna
€29.35 : 10,000 Greek drachma
* The starred notes are actually not the largest. In these three cases, there was a banknote 5X as much, but they did not circulate in large numbers.
The Euro-Area chose the denominations for the Euro in 1996. It might have been a good opportunity to reduce the size of banknotes in anticipation of a future "less cash" society.

But as we all know the European Central Bank chose to inject huge amounts of cash into countries that previously had very low value banknotes. France and Finland were using very little cash before the changeover.