So, the Federal Council just gave the green light for Switzerland to start automatically sharing crypto-related info with 74 partner countries. This was announced during a meeting on June 6, 2025, and the plan is to kick things off in 2026, with the first data exchange happening in 2027.
The list of countries includes all EU members, the UK, and most of the G20 nations, except for the USA and Saudi Arabia. They will only share info if those countries are on board and meet certain criteria set by the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework.
So Switzerland has decided to take a very different route regarding crypto assets. That's unfortunate!
They are known worldwide for their banking secrecy law which allows them to protect the information of their banking customer's data from any countries in the world.
It's unfortunate to see them taking a different route altogether for crypto assets. Probably they want to safeguard their own banking business by making crypto information available for the world.
Long gone are the days when the Swiss banks had any banking secrecy. Nowadays they will readily give your personal and bank information to anyone who asks nicely.
The way they handle the crypto assets in pretty much in line with the way they handle the regular bank accounts of their customers. They don't care about the privacy of their customers.
Yeah, they got rid of that secrecy like 5-10 years ago. I think we should have all learned by now that any friendliness a government shows towards crypto will likely be short-lived. The interests are simply too conflicting between what governments want and what crypto enables.
It's a shame! Because their banking secrecy laws only helped them to become one of the world's richest countries by per capita income. It's a shame that they have scrapped that law which gave them financial superpower.
No wonder they will do the same for the cryptos now. Also right, the interest towards crypto may be short lived in this case.
If I remember correctly, it started after the financial crisis of 2008. The US government needed money so they decided to get it from the so-called "fat cats" who had stashed their money abroad. The US government pressed the Swiss government and banks for information about the Americans who had bank accounts with them. The Swiss banks were not too happy about it, but in the end they decided to cooperate with the US government.
And then the EU governments followed suit and the Swiss banks started disclosing money with the EU as well.
While we don't know the exact date when the Swiss started cooperating virtually with everyone, we can assume that it happened at some point after after 2008.
And in 2018 they started sharing that information automatically
https://www.blevinsfranks.com/switzerland-starts-automatic-exchange-of-information/
10 years ago everything had already changed
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/swiss-banks-accused-of-hiding-data-behind-secrecy-laws/48292728
"Bank Secrecy Act was tightened in 2015 following a spate of stolen data being bought by foreign tax authorities.
Financial historians complain that banks now hide behind stricter secrecy laws when rejecting requests for documentation.
In January, the Swiss Historical Society, which represents 1,700 historians, wrote a letter to the finance ministry, calling for the law to be relaxed.*
It pointed to an extreme case of UBS bank denying an historian access to documents showing its financial dealings with Germany during World War II."
I am not disappointed at all, centralized governments would never care about privacy, they want to have as much information about you as possible, and in this case if sharing your data with 74 partner countries would help them with that, they will do it. I believe this will mostly affect centralized crypto service providers, rather than self custodial or privacy crypto services.
This is not surprising considering the recent openness of the Swiss financial sector. I suspect that they're sceptical towards crypto assets so sharing holder's data would ensure they uphold the policy of openness. What's important to them is ensuring that they keep tabs on money trail irrespective of the type of asset involved.
It's unfortunate that Switzerland, which has always been known as one of the most open and attractive countries for financial investment, would take a contrary approach to cryptocurrencies. Why does it take such a hardline approach to cryptocurrencies?
Perhaps it's because Switzerland has a large number of global banks and is a global center for centralized financial services that makes it reject decentralized cryptocurrencies. Although Switzerland is known for its banks, known for their strong banking system and the privacy they provide, in reality, this is clearly not true.
But what caught my attention in the news is why the United States and Saudi Arabia were excluded from the draft law?
They are not rejecting cryptocurrencies per se, what they are doing is making it impossible for cryptocurrency users to have their privacy, and to be a little bit fair to them, they are not the only government attacking crypto privacy. Even some of the governments that have plans to set up a BTC strategic reserve and all, are still against privacy in different degress, centralized governments would always want to watch people's finances closely.
Its interesting to see that Switzerland is moving forward with automatic information exchange on cryptoassets. The fact that 74 countries are involved including the UK, EU, and most G20 countries shows how serious global regulation is becoming. Starting from 2026, it looks like crypto will be much more transparent, at least in countries that agree to these standards. Surprising that the US and Saudi Arabia arent part of it yet.
The Switzerland step, despite their reputation for acknowledging and welcoming privacy, caught me off guard because they are not among the countries I expected to make this type of decision, and I believe ETF could be what trigger this move.
Ever since the Bitcoin ETF came into the picture, I have already had the impression that every Bitcoin enthusiast has to step up their privacy activities and choose self-custodial holding more because many battles against privacy surely happen.
Imagine bad actors getting hold of the private data these people are trying to share?