So the Swiss National Bank (SNB) was considering adding Bitcoin to its reserves. This idea actually dates back to 2021 when some folks claimed that the SNB was missing out on a huge chance and should look beyond the Euro and US dollar.
But the SNB stuck to its guns, rejecting Bitcoin all through 2022 and 2023. However, things changed in 2024 when a younger guy named Martin took over, and there was some hope he might be more open to crypto. But nope, he just reinforced the skepticism around miners and the tech. He set the bar really high for collecting signatures.
He said if they got 100,000 signatures, they could trigger a constitutional referendum. But after a year and a half, they only managed to scrape together 50,000 signatures, so it looks like adding Bitcoin to their reserves is off the table.
Meanwhile, the Czech National Bank is moving ahead without needing a public vote. Their governor, Ales Michl, just said at the Bitcoin 2026 event that their internal studies show that a 1% allocation in Bitcoin has boosted returns with low risk. While Switzerland is stuck waiting for signatures, the Czechs are already testing it out for two years.
It's their loss, honestly. There are going to be two types of people: those who regret what they missed and those who own Bitcoin. They chose regret. I don’t see this as bad news at all; Bitcoin doesn’t really need the SNB’s backing, it can thrive just fine on its own.
What do you think? If a similar thing happened in your country, do you think they could gather 100,000 signatures?
Switzerland has a strong tradition of holding gold, and the SNB holds a significant amount of gold in its reserves, particularly when compared to the size of the population. The fact that gold has risen sharply over the last two to three years, whilst Bitcoin has performed considerably below expectations, has probably not encouraged many people to sign up.
No way. With a population five or six times that of Switzerland, Im sure they wouldnt even reach 50,000 signatures. And in the unlikely event that a citizens initiative bill on this matter were actually tabled, the politicians would make sure it came to nothing.
I believe that if this proposal had come up in 2021, there had been more force than it is now. Well it's not like people have not seen the changes Bitcoin is making in the financial world, it's just that there's so much scepticism around it. It's bad that it took them 5 years after to realize that it's very important to have a Bitcoin reserve and now there are terms and conditions like having 100 signatures.
If such a bill is passed in my country, as usual, the politicians will do everything possible to make it not come to light.
Not all countries rely on signature collection for decision-making. For example, in some countries, all decisions are made solely by the authorities, and democracy is simply out of the question. I'd laugh at the thought of a Nordic country launching a similar campaign to collect signatures to add bitcoin to the reserve list, as it would be absurd and a show-off initiative that has nothing to do with real decision-making. I imagine there are many similar countries around the world.
Why aren't signatures collected when passing bills related to bitcoin, for example, taxes? With the condition, for example, that if there are not enough signatures, then bitcoin will not be taxed.
As for the Swedes, what can I say, they missed their chance.
If it's a public vote, then I expect to get more than millions of votes in our country. A lot of people have been using Bitcoin in my country, but due to it being illegal by the central bank, we can't use it publicly. We can use most exchanges, including Binance, since they're all not restricted by the government. But officially the government doesn't allow us to use it, or they don't adapt as well.
It's surprising a developed country like Switzerland failed to get even 100000 votes for a Bitcoin reserve; really regretting it. They should realise the Bitcoin potential and how it's been growing. Most powerful countries, like the US, are reserving Bitcoin, while our developing country struggles to make it legal. Recently our country's ruling party has been thinking about making Bitcoin legal. Have to wait a few months to see the results.
I don't even know where there should be a vote by the citizens for the government to create a bitcoin reserve for the country. The officials were elected to take the right decisions for the people, they should know better that bitcoin is a good option for a reserve even if they decide to keep just a single digit percentage of their income. Most of the population of Switzerland may not go with bitcoin because of their conservative nature and their inclination to gold, so conducting such polls will not yield the desired result. However, it is actually a very poor result considering that bitcoin is already heading to mainstream.
Don't worry too much with this failure. This is a great attempt and if you look at history of attempts for Bitcoin Futures, Bitcoin Spot ETFs in past years, you can see that such big change must be tried many times and a lot of time to make it done.
Eventually, we all witnessed how Bitcoin Futures were approved in late 2017 with CME and CBOE, then Bitcoin Spot ETF approvals in the USA in January 2024. The same challenge for any attempt to make Bitcoin as part of any country's national reserve, it won't be achieved with first attempt and it's not surprising that Switzerland did achieve that this time.
You are correct, because history also shows that even Bitcoin acceptance before usually didn't succeed on first attempt of introducing it. Since there are lots of people are been skeptical on new coin introduce to them.
Spot ETF's last 2024 also the approvals of futures way back 2017 take many years and many repeated proposals happen before it was been approved by the bodies regulates it.
This one provably applies the same with their strategic reserve adoption. This is provably a long process of rejections then trial again then more persistence with those officials want this to happen. Those attempt made by Switzerland is just another one step and their future efforts especially for introducing Bitcoin and building its popularity will surely result on something good in future.
I don't see the essence why signature campaign should be done. If its for a country(national reserves), then let the national or central bank decides whether bitcoin will be a valuable reserved asset or not. But if its done for the people, then public voting or signature campaign may make sense.
However, if its done in my own country, I believe 100k as the target is just a piece of cake. I believe there are a lot of bitcoin users or investors that are just doing secret transactions just to avoid getting attention from the public or central entities. Bitcoin is already legalized in my country and its already considered as a virtual asset, but not as a legal tender.
Switzerland is known for asking its residents what they want, and it's clear they don't want Bitcoin in their strategic reserves and there's no need to make a big deal out of it. I think the outcome would be similar in most European countries because very few people even understand what Bitcoin is, let alone why it would make sense to use taxpayers' money to buy something that is so volatile.
Bitcoin is supposed to be a decentralized cryptocurrency and it's sad to see people who want it stored in central bank vaults.
I don't think that strategic decisions are managed by signatures, and a decision like adding an asset to the strategic reserve is a political decision that needs full support from the government and not just an exception. Therefore, I believe that the idea from the beginning was unreasonable and not serious.
100000? Try in countries like India and China and you would see the signatures piling up in just a couple of days, but their governments aren't dumb enough to allow something like that since they wanna keep hoarding more and more power for themselves.
The SNB are busy storing black money for elites globally and have no time to focus on adding BTC as a reserve asset.
Do you have any ideas how many campaigns fail to get the signatures required? Getting 50k signatures is not a bad deal at all given how most of the humans on the planet are medically retarded and their brain capacity is limited to thinking about their next meal.
If so many people use it and like it, why don't you organize something and get it going? It seems to me that most people in most countries are very lazy. This wouldn't even be really hard work, it just needs organization to get the initial ball rolling. Most of the work is divided across many people in these cases.
It is not surprising at all. Just because a country is developed that does not mean that its population is smarter or forward thinking. Most humans are as developed as a medieval witch-hunter. You will understand that times have changed only when proposals start coming from the top to the bottom, in this case the leadership of the bank would be proposing to add Bitcoin or at the very least they would want to ask the public themselves (if they care about its opinion, which they don't unless they have to).
The population of your country and Bitcoin awareness will affect the success or failure of the referendum. Switzerland has a population of 9.1 million, which might be low compared to some countries.
Countries like the US, with more people and high crypto awareness, can achieve 100,000 Signatures within a short period. More people might sign the referendum if it is done privately. As you said, some people might avoid the exercise because they don't want attention.
100,000 is doable with 9.1 M population, it all depends on how strong the signature campaign is. I do not think that the one who handles the signature campaign is serious. I believe they just put the sheet there and let people look at it without anyone explaining how it works.
If the one who handle the signature campaign is really determine to get that 100,000 signature, he can get it in less than 1 year or even less than half a year.
Or the campaign and the subject of the campaign is not explained enough.
Although the number of Bitcoin users has grown significantly in my country, I am not yet convinced that 100,000 signatures will be obtained easily. I haven't seen any government discourse regarding the adoption of Bitcoin as a reserve asset (I hope I haven't missed anything). However, were such a proposal to emerge, it seems likely that various groups would oppose it in pursuit of their own respective interests.
In my view, public interest in Bitcoin is currently still at the stage of being an investment asset and trading instrument. However, should the government plan to adopt Bitcoin as a reserve asset, such a move would likely support even though I am unsure as to the extent of that support.
The question you asked is wrong as it does not proportionally scale with the population of the country in mind.
Switzerland has less than 10 million people so 100 thousand votes means over 1 in 100 people had to sign. Now comparing that with India which has a population higher by more than 145 times. Of course they would get 100,000 votes. That means almost one in 15 thousand people have to sign!
I am not surprised at all by the news. But it is interesting anyway. I wonder if this also has to do with the fact that people would rather sign for something urgent than something that simply benefits them. I see this happening often. People do not vote or sign because they think others will and way fewer end up voting in the end.
You think politicians doesn't know these? I'm convince by now that state leaders knows about Bitcoin than the way even the citizens do too much faction of government doesn't allow them lend a voice especially when there is shift in power to some other part while you remain on the minor side without support to even raise a motion in the house. Most often, if it's not going to favour the house, that bill is not getting passed or heard, the first question they will ask is "what will be our benefits" and these benefit isn't about people, I mean pocket, that's the language most leaders understand.
Another concern is other organization interests and some other countries. You see world bank? That organization is a deadly one, I don't see any benefit of any country hooking their finance with them, they don't allow countries make financial development on their free will, they influence most countries and that's because if you be their puppet, you will have access to loans to finance your country and because regimes are short, no one want to makes sacrifices to build without listening to them. Government is such a useless system by design that the definition need to be change, it was not by the people and for the people, it's interest of the wealth.
If we were talking about my country I would agree but we are talking about theoretically one of the least corrupt countries in the entire World. It is supposed to act in the interest of its own citizens. Not that I trust they would, I do not trust any government but I do think they are looking much less often at their own pockets than my country does when having to change laws or decide about something that is in our interest.