(Bloomberg) — Switzerland is set for some self-reflection on its relationship with money, if the country’s Bitcoin evangelists get their way.
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Amid intensified global interest in the cryptocurrency, after Donald Trump won the White House with promises of friendlier US regulation, advocates are pushing for a national vote to enshrine it in the Swiss constitution. They want the digital asset to sit alongside the dollar, the euro and gold in the central bank’s reserves.
Under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, campaigners recently began the process of collecting 100,000 signatures to force a consultation of the electorate. Any subsequent vote would still be years away, giving them plenty of time to argue their case to the public.
The debate they can foment could ultimately compel the Swiss National Bank, a bastion of conservative monetary orthodoxy and one of the country’s most respected institutions, to question how far to embrace an asset that its officials struggle to dignify as wholesome, let alone worth buying.
In the meantime, the political push for a vote might effectively become a marketing campaign for the cryptocurrency in a finance-focused economy that has already gone further than many peers to welcome it as an investment, a means of payment, and the focus of a whole trading industry.
“People here certainly show more interest and openness for Bitcoin as a store of value than in neighboring countries,” said Rino Borini, who has run a cryptocurrency meeting forum and training center in Zurich since 2018. “It’s like with cash. The Swiss like it for its security and privacy.”
House of Satoshi, the business co-founded by the 51-year-old entrepreneur, has seen a surge in interest in its seminars after a rally that saw Bitcoin breach $100,000 in December for the first time. Workshops to teach cryptocurrency basics are now fully booked for weeks in advance.
For all its investment potential, Bitcoin’s immunity to state interference is a key emphasis of the 10-member panel, an all-male crew of cryptocurrency aficionados ranging from entrepreneurs to academics, whose campaign for a vote launched in December.
That taps into a popular theme of guarding sovereignty touted by the biggest force in the country’s politics, the anti-immigrant and isolationist Swiss People’s Party.
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“Most of the SNB’s assets are either in euros or dollars, which makes us dependent on the economies and regulations of foreign countries,” said Yves Bennaim, the 51-year-old chair of the committee. “With Bitcoin, the SNB would have the chance to invest in something that isn’t controlled by any other nation.”
Switzerland’s openness to cryptocurrencies might offer some fertile ground to build support.
A study by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts released late last year found 11% of the population already hold digital assets. Crypto ATMs lurk even in small towns there and, since 2016, Bitcoin has been available to buy from the national railway operator’s ticket machines.
Some local governments in the highly devolved country have jumped on the bandwagon: authorities in Lugano, for example, accept the cryptocurrency to pay everything from taxes to fines.
An amenable regulatory backdrop has helped. Switzerland was first to award crypto banks a license, and some bigger institutions offer crypto services too. Government-owned PostFinance AG did so after seeing outflows of over 1 billion Swiss francs ($1.1 billion) to digital asset exchanges.
It’s in the low-tax canton of Zug, whose so-called Crypto Valley is now home to a multitude of associated trading companies and foundations, that organizers can count on some support as they gather signatures before a June 2026 deadline.
“I will call out to our client base to vote for this,” said Olga Feldmeier, founder and chair of Smart Valor AG, a Zug-based crypto investment platform. “I’m sure that the faces of the Crypto Valley will want to make their contribution.”
The organizers might also exploit a shifting global backdrop. Trump has backed the idea of a strategic national Bitcoin reserve.
Christian Lindner, Germany’s former finance minister, said last month that the European Central Bank and Bundesbank should consider Bitcoin for reserves — an idea rejected this week by ECB staff officials — and the matter has come up in the Czech Republic too.
Even so, the Swiss campaigners may have mountains to climb to win an eventual vote. The SNB, which is constitutionally required to hold gold in its reserves, has been highly skeptical about branching out into Bitcoin.
While officials are plowing ahead with a pilot for a wholesale central-bank digital currency, the position on cryptocurrencies doesn’t show any sign of shifting under the new leadership of President Martin Schlegel. In November, he dismissed the assets as a “niche phenomenon.”
For UBS economist Alessandro Bee, one reason to stay wary is quite simply Bitcoin’s wild gyrations.
“With high volatility, there is a risk that the SNB’s equity will shrink when markets fall,” he said. “Over a longer period of time, the SNB’s credibility could suffer.”
In any case, for all their openness to hosting crypto companies, the conservative Swiss may not be easy to convince. Influencing SNB policy has been a tough nut to crack for past plebiscites, including unsuccessful proposals for a minimum amount of gold reserves or giving it sole authority to create money.
“The Swiss have an extraordinarily high level of trust in their national bank,” said Claude Maurer, chief economist at BAK Economics. “I don’t think that an initiative that wants to tell the SNB what assets to invest in would stand a chance.”
Back at the House of Satoshi, Borini is seeing a whole cross section of Swiss society sign up to his courses. Participants range from multi-millionaire entrepreneurs and warehouse clerks to teenagers and retirees.
“People from all walks of life are willing to spend money to get the necessary knowledge,” he said, adding that the whole decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies is like Switzerland itself. “Sooner or later, the SNB will have to change its arguments on why it doesn’t hold Bitcoin assets.”
–With assistance from Bastian Benrath-Wright and Mark Schroers.
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