7 months ago
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A Swiss non-profit group is making a second attempt to convince the central bank to add Bitcoin to its national reserves.
Bitcoin bulls in Switzerland are working on getting the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to officially hold Bitcoin (BTC) as part of its reserves. A few Bitcoiners have now launched efforts at a referendum to make a small adjustment to Switzerland’s constitution to add Bitcoin reserves to Gold.
Bitcoin in Swiss National Reserves
According to a local news report from Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), the constitution states that the Swiss National Bank creates currency reserves from its income, and holds a part of it in Gold. A non-profit think tank, 2B4CH, now wants the relevant constitutional article to read “Gold and Bitcoin”.
2B4CH founder and chairman Yves Bennaïm said the organization is already hard at work:
“We are in the process of completing the organizational preparations for the committee and preparing the documents that must be submitted to the State Chancellery in order to start the process.”
To achieve any success, 2B4CH must get 100,000 signatures from citizens within 18 months before a referendum is held.
This is not the think tank’s first attempt at lobbying the SNB to hold reserves in Bitcoin. In 2021, 2B4CH launched the initiative in a thread posted on X (formerly Twitter), looking to amend Article 99 Clause 3 of the Federal Constitution. At the time, 2B4CH noted that it was not “too optimistic about getting a law actually passed”. However, it hoped to get 100k signatures to open a public conversation and debate.
Switzerland Would Have Been $32 Billion Richer
According to Luzius Meisser, President of Bitcoin trading platform Bitcoin Suisse, the move would allow Switzerland to operate independently of the European Central Bank (ECB). Meisser is currently helping Bennaïm with the initiative and will have 3 minutes to plead their case before the SNB at an April 26 meeting.
The NZZ report states that Meisser previously asked the SNB to buy 1 billion Swiss francs a month at the 2022 general meeting. According to him, Switzerland would be richer by $32.9 billion (30 billion Swiss francs) if it had taken Meisser’s advice. The Bitcoin Suisse President is now saying that delaying this move would be detrimental to Switzerland. According to him, other central banks will set their eyes on Bitcoin and buy the asset. This will force Switzerland to eventually buy Bitcoin at much higher prices.
Bennaïm and Meisser’s efforts are significantly creating awareness for Bitcoin and its potential uses. Even if the current attempt fails again, the efforts, including Meisser’s upcoming SNB speech, are strong enough to keep the conversation going for a while.
In 2022, the SNB Chairman Thomas Jordan said at its general meeting that “we do not believe Bitcoin meets the requirements of currency reserves. That’s why we have until now decided not to have Bitcoin on our balance sheet”. Otherwise, “buying Bitcoin is not a problem for us. We can do that either directly or can buy investment products which are based on Bitcoin,” said he.
