Yep - the early adopters probably on average sold fast and never got back in - as it would have been at a "loss" - I know one who cashed out at around 20 dollar BTC and was happy with his several thousand euro gain - until....
I have a feeling that a lot of Finns are culturally wait and see adopters, normally waiting for Sweden to prove it works first. :)
This. Having the Swedes test out a novelty and seeing how it works is a time-honored practice in all areas. @acidyo said Finland has had some extremely early adopters of Bitcoin and that, too, is another paradox of Finnish culture. Finland has always had a relatively high proportion of lone wolves who've gone their own way and done extraordinary things. The literary classic Seitsemän veljestä captures this phenomenon. But when it comes to the cultural mainstream, the country is not a first-adopter in anything.
The problem is that Finland jumps on the bandwagon at the peak of attention when there are already a thousand others in the space. As I keep saying, not everyone is cut out for being an early adopter. Finns generally want to be the best of the group, Swedes the furthest away from the group.
But yes, there are the lone wolves here too, unfortunately it takes far too long for general adoption to follow, even though track record should influence the decision to move.
Internally, Sweden has a stronger culture of conformity than Finland. But as a society, Swedes like to consider themselves as ones to take the initiative and pioneer new things.
I think adoption tends to be quick in most things as long as what is being adopted something technological. But cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech is not just technological. It's deeply philosophical. The entire starting point in the creation of Bitcoin was fundamental distrust in central banking. Trust, however, is a major theme in Finnish society and culture. Even the sparsity of communication (I don't mean the lack of small talk, I mean the fact that a lot of things are simply not communicated) that any foreigner will pick up after living here for a while, is a result of trust which in turn results from mainstream people having so much common ground that little communication is needed in the first place. Thus it is not surprising that a technological novelty offered as a solution to the problem of lack of trust will not get much traction in Finland.
That said, the way cryptocurrency transactions are taxed in Finland makes much more sense than how the IRS or other tax authorities in most other countries tax crypto from what I've heard. Yet another paradox.