SWISS NATIONAL BANK is the first Central Bank to own Bitcoin (via TSLA and MSRT)

[fillippone]

I read a piece of very interesting news on Bloomberg:

Swiss National Bank's US Equities Portfolio Reaches Record $141
(MT Newswires)
Swiss National Bank's (SNBN.SW) US equities portfolio surged to a record $141 billion as of December 2020, with the central bank holding 20% of its reserves in stocks, according to a US SEC filing.

The central bank owns shares in 2,490 companies, including Apple, Amazon and even GameStop, the share price of which has been subject to a controversial face-off between small investors and hedge funds.

The bank's shares gained over 1% on Feb. 5.

Wow!
It is now common for CB’s to have equities on their portfolios, Bank of Japan (BOJ) is a leader in this, but apparently, now it’s so common, even more, when people literally are throwing money at you, and you have to put it somewhere (this is basically what’s happening in Switzerland.

But wait, if SNB is long equity, and now some equity is long Bitcoin, well, then SNB is (indirectly long Bitcoin).

So I headed to finte.io, a website that conveniently groups 13F filings to the sec.

All hedge funds or institutions that manage over $100M are required by the SEC to file quarterly reports on their holdings. These reports are called 13F reports. However, the filings are required the following quarter from the reporting period, which means that by the time the filing is made (and we see them), the information could be five months old.

Boom!
 Swiss National Bank - 13F Filing - 2020-12-31

All the holding, nicely sorted.



Looking for MicroStrategy and Tesla, we can discover how many shares they own.
For MicroStrategy, we know exactly how many bitcoins they have, how many outstanding shares, so it’s trivial to compute how many bitcoins they have.
For TSLA figures are a little bit muddier, but we can guesstimate a ballpark guess: 1.5 billion bitcoin bought at the average price of the tentative time they bought, multiplied for the outstanding stocks.

Result of my back of the envelope calculations


Link to spreadsheet

SNB owns 245 BTC!

This is something that definitely has to be taken into account when someone will decide to “ban bitcoin”, or something like this.

[TedMosby]

The central bank owns shares in 2,490 companies, including Apple, Amazon and even GameStop,...

So, bankers speculate (but more like gambling) in stocks too and said Bitcoin is monkey business.

-snip-

SNB owns 245 BTC!

This is something that definetly has to be taken into account when someone will decide to “ban bitcoin”, or something like this.

with those 245 BTC, how many Laszlo Hanyecz Pizza's share that SNB will get?  

I can say we are almost safe now because they won't ban themself.

[stompix]

Et tu, Brute? 
Common, have mercy, when I read the title and see you're the topic creator I thought they were buying bitcoins themselves not owning shares in a company that holds coins, I was getting ready to jump around and check if the prices haven't already reached $100k.
They also have shares in Honeywell, that doesn't mean they have a few Minuteman ICBMs in their safe 

Bad, bad fillippone

This is something that definetly has to be taken into account when someone will decide to “ban bitcoin”, or something like this.

That ship has sailed, nobody will ban Bitcoin, at least not countries that matter in the global economy.
There will be morons every now and there with stupid ideas like what's happening in Nigeria or India, but an all-out ban? I'm more concerned about an asteroid hitting the Earth than this.

[fillippone]

Et tu, Brute? 
<...>
They also have shares in Honeywell, that doesn't mean they have a few Minuteman ICBMs in their safe 

Bad, bad fillippone

I am a verified human, and I can be wrong at times.

I admit that when I wrote the thread title, I was tempted to be a little bit ambiguous about this story. So I decided to keep a catchy headline, but to be very precise in the text.
So, I thank you for your critic and I slightly edited the title to make 100% sure nobody understand something different than reality.

And, I get what you are saying wit the Honeywell comparison, but sorry, it is not the same thing. Honeywell might have some ICBM on their account, maybe because some client is expected to take delivery or whatever reasons, but these are not in direct disposal of the shareholders, as those goods are THE Enterprise activity. As I didn't state that SNB owns a few thousands iPhones as they are AAPL shareholders.
But bitcoin in Treasury account is in the full disposal of the shareholders, via the CFO, who can freely decide about those assets.
So I think this is a little bit different.

[Obito]

The central bank owns shares in 2,490 companies, including Apple, Amazon and even GameStop,...

So, bankers speculate (but more like gambling) in stocks too and said Bitcoin is monkey business.

That is how the bankers make money, they split the money that is deposited in their banks to investing, trading and lending AFAIK, the reason for that is that they need to make the money circulate and make more profit from that money, they technically are a investment managers that get so much money from investments and have the cents considered as their clients dividends.

[hugeblack]

Do companies like TSLA and MSRT take approvals from all shareholders before they bid on deals like buying bitcoins, or do they depend on CEO policies?
245 Bitcoin is not a big sum, they can sell it if there is any problem and I don't think they will pressure to pass legislation on this aspect.
The positive point is that the centralization of many banking sectors will make it unfeasible to ban Bitcoin, but we will see tightening of laws to ensure that governments guarantee taxes.

[stompix]

So, I thank you for your critic and I slightly edited the title to make 100% sure nobody understand something different than reality.
And, I get what you are saying wit the Honeywell comparison, but sorry, it is not the same thing.

Eh, doesn't matter it was a wave of good news happening lately so I genuinely thought they bought it, I'm not sure if they can even do so directly but the enthusiasm got the better of me too.
With the Honeywell comparison, it was a lame tentative of trying to make a joke, you've said something about others not daring to ban bitcoin, nuclear weapons are deterrent but it was too hard at that hour yesterday to put it nicely into words, and besides, nukes are not that funny so I left it like that, too much work for nothing.

Do companies like TSLA and MSRT take approvals from all shareholders before they bid on deals like buying bitcoins, or do they depend on CEO policies?

I don't know about MSRT but when it comes to TSLA I guess the meetings go like this:
Elon: I've dreamed of this yesterday..
The rest: Such idea! Wow factor! Much approval!

[jaysabi]

SNB owns 245 BTC!

This is something that definitely has to be taken into account when someone will decide to “ban bitcoin”, or something like this.

SNB doesn't own any bitcoin.  If they did, this would be worth taking into consideration, but the concept that you somehow own bitcoin through the transitive property of having minority stakes in companies that own bitcoin is logically faulty, to say the least.  Not your keys, not your bitcoin.

[vaultman]

Great news. And this is just news about those who themselves confess to investing in bitcoins. I am sure that there are still many billionaires who do not advertise their investments in cryptocurrencies. If banks are already officially announcing investments in cryptocurrency, then this is a strong sign that we will soon see an even greater rise in the price of bitcoin and the demand for it.

[goaldigger]

Great news. And this is just news about those who themselves confess to investing in bitcoins. I am sure that there are still many billionaires who do not advertise their investments in cryptocurrencies. If banks are already officially announcing investments in cryptocurrency, then this is a strong sign that we will soon see an even greater rise in the price of bitcoin and the demand for it.

Since owning bitcoin is still not legal on so many places, they can’t come out easily but I also believe that they really own Bitcoin but I’m not sure with the amount. Our central bank are very supportive on cryptocurrency and it good that other central bank are also doing the same thing and not just supporting bitcoin but also holding bitcoin. Though Its hard to know the real agreement between these companies and maybe SNB is just collecting some Bitcoin for the fees and services they offered?

[fillippone]

Chistine felt the right thing was to make a statement to counter my Tweet:

ECB president Christine Lagarde says it's 'very unlikely' that central banks will hold bitcoin in the near future


Summary:

• ECB president Christine Lagarde said it was "very unlikely" central banks would soon hold bitcoin.
• "I would say it's out of the question," Lagarde said on a call hosted by The Economist.
• Most European countries will require stimulus through 2021, she said.

Of course she's referencing to direct investment, but as we saw, they already own indirectly some Bitcoin, I wouldn't be so sure about the future.

[Lucius]

Central banks will probably get involved in the game only when Bitcoin is positioned so that it cannot be avoided, or perhaps better to say at a time when it will become clear to everyone that it is very stupid to continue to ignore something in which everyone invests. I am not at all surprised by what Lagarde is saying at the moment, because any other statement could be interpreted as giving legitimacy to something that central banks are trying to avoid.

That ship has sailed, nobody will ban Bitcoin, at least not countries that matter in the global economy.
There will be morons every now and there with stupid ideas like what's happening in Nigeria or India, but an all-out ban? I'm more concerned about an asteroid hitting the Earth than this.

I would never completely rule out such a development, because India or Nigeria are not countries that have a global impact like the one that the US or the UK have. I've already commented on what I think about it, so I won't repeat myself - but all eyes are on the US when it comes to Bitcoin.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5315581.msg56306393#msg56306393

[d_eddie]

As for German banks, the news I want to hear is "Bundesbank has bought bitcoin."  

Don't hold your breath!:

Re: SWISS NATIONAL BANK is the first Central Bank to own Bitcoin (via TSLA and MSRT)

Yes, I'd read about that, but I'd missed your later post:

Chistine felt the right thing was to make a statement to counter my Tweet:

ECB president Christine Lagarde says it's 'very unlikely' that central banks will hold bitcoin in the near future
-snip-

Yes, Chrissie, you could even ban European banks from holding btc by decree. You could base your ruling on volatility, induced instability on sovereign (Euro) currency, drug trafficking, child porn or Proudhon warnings.
All Swiss banks would have to comply immediately. Right?

Uh wait...  

[dkbit98]

Did ECB president Christine Lagarde said just recently that is is very unlikely any central banks will hold bitcoin in the near future... was she wrong or she is not reading the news
Banks are done, busted and they are probably living their last days in current economical system and I am sure that some of them will try to buy and manipulate Bitcoin.
My theory is that central banks will just make their own coins, just like Amazon is now hiring developers to make them their own Amazon coin wtf... why don't just accept Bitcoin like Tesla did

[el kaka22]

I guess it does make sense that they do end up putting money into other stuff, because somehow they need to make that money into even more money to be a viable business, sure central banks are not "business" in the same sense but constantly losing money is not an option neither, which is why I think it is crucially important for them to use that. Buying stocks of huge gigantic companies are a great way to do it, it is unlikely that these companies would bankrupt, which means they are investing at the right place.

Yes I do agree that if a central bank invests into a company that invests into bitcoin that means even if indirectly, that central bank invested into bitcoin as well. This opens up a lot of possibilities, even if central banks do not buy bitcoin straight up, they could potentially buy from places like grayscale so they could own bitcoin without actually owning any bitcoin.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

So, bankers speculate (but more like gambling) in stocks too and said Bitcoin is monkey business.

I'm not sure the bankers see ownership of a stock like MSTR as buying bitcoin outright.  The fact that MSTR has a lot of bitcoin is just one aspect of their business.  I'd think that banks look at stocks as businesses (as most investors do) and not care so much what kind of cash reserve they have, although I'd expect them to think of MSTR and the others as being more risky because of their btc holdings.

Interesting info, OP.  Bitcoin has definitely become way more mainstream than it was in its early days (and even more so since I started getting interested in it, which was relatively late).  It started with mainstream news coverage, and now we've got these big corporations preferring to own bitcoin instead of USD or any other fiat currency.  Pretty cool.

[Fesatmas]

Finally, I got very interesting news and was happy that there is a bank that is very friendly with the presence of Bitcoin, I don't know what kind of idea, what is clear is that the decision from Bank SWISS is very correct. and this will be a rethink for some central banks like in Nigeria, Bangladesh etc. let them think again, because they have rejected and are hostile to the existence of bitcoin. I am very happy with the decision of the Swiss bank to officially own bitcoin, at the same time it has supported bitcoin development in a better direction.


hopefully Banks in other countries start taking into account bitcoin, especially in the country where I live.

[fillippone]

<...>
My theory is that central banks will just make their own coins, just like Amazon is now hiring developers to make them their own Amazon coin wtf... why don't just accept Bitcoin like Tesla did

Certainly Central Banks will start fiddling with CBDC, Central Bank Digital Currencies, some useless experiment that someone compares with Bitcoin because of the world digital, as if the EUR or the USD weren’t digital enough.

The real reason why CB are doing this is not to make the system more efficient, or fight the illegal economy. No, the only reason is power: they want to excercice their power on you, while screening how you spend your digital cash (that we learnt is not actually cash, because traceable).

[Wenbing]

Wow, this is one of the outstanding and amazing news of the week.

i use to think that CB use to keep their money in USD and gold reserves. Is this one an unconventional practice for SNB to have his reserves in equity of companies such as GameStop.

There is an Israeli professor of economics that wrote one time that Speculation or arbitrage is a form of entrepreneurship. Well, the goal of SNB is to make money, as such it has to be entrepreneur in strategy.

<...>
My theory is that central banks will just make their own coins, just like Amazon is now hiring developers to make them their own Amazon coin wtf... why don't just accept Bitcoin like Tesla did

 as if the EUR or the USD weren’t digital enough.

What a line of good thinking that spur reflection. Come to think about it, fiat money has existed in digital format for a long time, when there is a need to print money, i feel what need to be done is to add digital numbers to the amount of money supply (MS). So, i see that there would be very slim difference between CBDC and the current currency. The only difference may be the technology supporting the two and what the people use it for.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[fillippone]

<...>
My theory is that central banks will just make their own coins, just like Amazon is now hiring developers to make them their own Amazon coin wtf... why don't just accept Bitcoin like Tesla did

 as if the EUR or the USD weren’t digital enough.

What a line of good thinking that spur reflection. Come to think about it, fiat money has existed in digital format for a long time, when there is a need to print money, i feel what need to be done is to add digital numbers to the amount of money supply (MS). So, i see that there would be very slim difference between CBDC and the current currency. The only difference may be the technology supporting the two and what the people use it for.

The difference from the user point of view would be very small, but the implication for the banking system would be massive: issuing big a CBDC the central banks would entirely skip the “private” banking sector, being able to fully achieve the deleterious policy of negative interest rates that wasn’t able to make effective during the last years (with a negative interest rate savings are seriously hindered and consumption is invenctivised.