Swiss National Bank Bitcoin Reserve Effort Halts Due to Insufficient Signatures
The proposal aimed to modify Switzerland’s constitution, mandating the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to maintain BTC alongside gold and foreign-currency reserves.
What to know:
— Swiss advocates are abandoning their push for the SNB to hold bitcoin reserves after securing approximately half of the 100,000 signatures required for a national referendum.
— The proposal aimed to modify Switzerland’s constitution, mandating the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to maintain BTC alongside gold and foreign-currency reserves.
— The SNB had previously rejected the proposal over concerns regarding bitcoin’s liquidity and volatility as a necessary reserve asset.
Swiss advocates will abandon their push for the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to hold bitcoin
The proposal aimed to change Switzerland’s constitution so the SNB would hold bitcoin alongside gold and foreign-currency reserves. The group had 18 months to gather signatures and push for the country’s direct democracy to vote on the subject.
The Federal Chancellery listed the proposal as an amendment to the country’s Federal Constitution, requiring part of the SNB’s monetary reserves to be held in gold and bitcoin. The text did not specify an allocation.
The campaign had framed bitcoin as a neutral reserve asset and a hedge against exposure to dollar- and euro-denominated holdings. Supporters said those currencies make up roughly three-quarters of the SNB’s foreign-currency reserves, according to Decryptnews.
The SNB had already rejected the idea last year, when it opposed adding bitcoin to its reserves over concerns surrounding the cryptocurrency’s liquidity and volatility.