The Swiss National Bank (SNB) was going to add Bitcoin as a reserve asset to its balance sheet. The proposal goes way back and started in 2021. At that time, a group argued that the SNB was missing a massive opportunity and that it must diversify away from the Euro and US dollar.
SNB did not change its objections against BTC throughout 2022 to 2023. But in 2024, the baton passed to Martin because the leadership was younger and might be more crypto curious, but he actually doubled down on the miner narrative and technical skepticism. He effectively upheld the high bar for the signature collection campaign,
He said, get 100,000 signatures and we will trigger the constitutional referendum, but after an effort of 18 months, they were only able to get 50,000 signatures, and
now they have hit the wall and won't be adding Bitcoin to their reserves.
On the other hand,
Czech National Bank is moving forward without needing any public vote. The governor, Ales Michl, recently confirmed at the Bitcoin 2026 event that their internal data shows a 1% BTC allocation has optimized the returns without much risk. While Switzerland waits for the signatures, the Czechs are already running a two year test portfolio.
Their loss, because there will be two kinds of people, one with regret and the other with Bitcoins. They chose to be in regret. It is not bearish news, if anyone thinks that it is, because so far Bitcoin does not need SNB's support and it can do better even without them.
Do you think if a similar campaign were launched in your country, advocates there could manage to get 100,000 people to sign? Or is public interest in Bitcoin still too minor for that kind of constitutional change in your country?
