Switzerland Fails to Pass Central Bank Bitcoin Reserve Allocation Proposal, Co-Signatures Fall Short of Referendum Threshold

BlockBeats News, May 9th – An initiative in Switzerland that called for the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to include Bitcoin in its official reserves has failed due to a lack of signatures. The initiative aimed to amend the Swiss Constitution to require the SNB to hold BTC reserves in addition to its gold and forex reserves.

According to the rules, the initiators needed to collect 100,000 valid signatures within 18 months to trigger a nationwide referendum. However, they only managed to achieve about half of the target, leading to the decision to abandon the initiative.

Supporters had described Bitcoin as a "neutral reserve asset" that could hedge against the risks of USD and EUR reserves. Currently, USD and EUR assets account for about three-quarters of the SNB's forex reserves. However, the SNB had explicitly opposed the proposal last year, citing Bitcoin's liquidity and volatility as not meeting the central bank's reserve asset requirements.