Buterin shared his perspective on the situation in Sweden and Norway regarding the abandonment of the idea of a completely cashless society.
He believes that centralized payment systems are fragile, which causes countries not to trust them.
According to him, Ethereum and other crypto assets could become alternatives to cash.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin commented on Sweden and Norway's decision to partially abandon the idea of a completely cashless society due to the vulnerability of centralized payment systems to infrastructure failures.
"Nordic countries are retreating from the cashless society initiative because the centralized implementation of this concept has proven too fragile," Buterin wrote on platform X, reacting to The Guardian's material.
After cash transactions in Sweden fell to 1% of the total number of transactions, and the Norwegian app Vipps dominated retail, geopolitical instability, particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine, revealed the vulnerability of such systems to infrastructure attacks.
"Cash turns out to be necessary as a backup option," noted Buterin.
In his opinion, decentralized platforms like Ethereum could play a key role in sustainable payment solutions in the future, but to do this, several technical challenges need to be overcome — in particular, the dependence on electricity and the internet.
"Ethereum must be resilient and private enough to serve such a role," he emphasized.
Not everyone in the crypto community shares Buterin's cautious optimism. In a comment to Decrypt, CEO of Phoenix Labs Sam McPherson noted that Ethereum is already ready for this challenge:
"Ethereum is designed to be as resilient as possible to hostile actions — DeFi protocols already manage billions without serious failures."
However, the publication noted that other experts point out that offline functionality remains the main barrier. Technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs have the potential to enable autonomous transactions, but are still experimental and require trusted hardware.
Stablecoins tied to fiat currencies, which do not depend on a single centralized issuer, are also considered a promising option.
However, for Ethereum to become a real substitute for cash, issues of privacy and physical accessibility in crisis situations need to be resolved, analysts noted.
"We still have a long way to go before Ethereum becomes a true alternative to cash transactions," concluded Harry Bickl from NodeOps.
Recall that Buterin wants to make the Ethereum network similar to Bitcoin, and recently presented a proposal for a new type of nodes to preserve privacy.
