Switzerland Could Not Even Get 100,000 Signatures to Adopt Bitcoin as Reserves!

[X-ray]

100,000 signatures is too much and they probably lacked engagement.

Not everyone have time to sign and honestly majority of people just don't care. Getting 100,000 signature from 9 million population seems like a hard thing to do.

You won't even get this much signature easily from big country with big population like the U.S. without making noises and hype.

[Luzin]

100,000 signatures is too much and they probably lacked engagement.

Remember how their country's system works, the Swiss referendum system is indeed difficult to get that many votes. Their country is in very good economic condition, with low inflation and a very stable Swiss franc. So I think Bitcoin is only an option, not a choice that is very necessary. Remember many countries or people trust and keep money in Switzerland. So I think they also have to maintain the trust of other countries. Adding Bitcoin, which has fluctuating value, as a reserve asset with higher risk is too risky. Even though Switzerland is a Bitcoin-friendly country, this shows that making Bitcoin a reserve asset is also not easy.

[Satofan44]

you have no Idea what I think or believe.

and for that matter you are in denial that Swiss fear btc rather than welcome it.

Paranoid, old, and diabetic. Let's not pretend these are traits of a scientist that is able to correctly interpret what something like a single event of failing to gather enough signatures without analysis could mean. Nobody with a working brain among the average people is "afraid" of BTC, the only ones that could have a reason to fear it justifiably are those that stand to lose power and control should it become more widespread (and those people are very few). Some Bitcoiners are so old that they themselves have started writing Bitcoin obituaries instead of learning a single lesson from the past obituaries. This case here does not say anything at all about the reasons for which it failed and what the people actually do think or do not think about Bitcoin in said country.

Anyone with a working brain, or any scientific experience, would know that you would have to analyze this situation and gain a lot more data about it before one could even start to consider what it really means. Without such, you could throw 100 theories and they would all be equally valid.

Well in most cases not, but you have to be specific who you blame. Saying that the state adopting Bitcoin for whatever reason is not great is not the same as blaming individual users for applauding State adoption even when it is done for the reason.

Yeah, I agree. But the general tendency in these threads is "strategic reserve gud, we go moon!" (in reality, sometimes I get the impression some people want the State to be the "greatest fool" so they can dump their tokens for 1 million/BTC). I haven't really read nuanced posts in this thread unfortunately. So I reserve the right to counter unnuanced stuff with unnuanced stuff sometimes Just to make people think a bit. Not every answer has to be a doctoral thesis.

You are absolutely right to criticize those and that those are common. Most users here are naive and do not have neither experience nor knowledge to evaluate these subjects. They are usually either fully pro or fully against, both of which are invalid positions in majority of things. Strategic reserve can be a good thing but it can also be a bad thing, and in conclusion to this part I give you the right to counter.  

Where I'm however not nuanced is that it should be clear that a Bitcoin landscape with governments / central banks capturing too much of the supply (>5 million in total for all governments, I'd say) would be very risky regarding the dynamics of a possible "government cartel" influencing Bitcoin development. Even if a single government is pro-Bitcoin and adopts a strategic reserve as part of a pro-Bitcoin policy with strong protections to privacy and censorship resistance, if the political landscape changes, this reserve can turn into a risk. Basically, they'd need to approve a constitutional change for me to approve a millionary reserve for any government or central bank.

Exactly, until there is a big shift in the reasons for which Bitcoin is adopted there is always going to be a huge risk with these things. Naturally someone who adopts Bitcoin for the right reasons will call for self-custody, widespread distribution of Bitcoin and similar things. Someone who adopts it for the wrong reasons will not care about these things or will even actively fight against them.

But gradual Bitcoin adoption is fine and can justify a small strategic reserve, like in the case of El Salvador.

I do like these concepts more in the long run, some bigger countries could do even 100 Bitcoin per day.

People are very short sighted in my opinion.  If this was the 'only way' to increase adoption then what happens if this initiative is successful?  There is a point where the Bitcoin adoption rate reaches a peak.  We have to accept that.  Unlimited growth is impossible.  So if no other thing can be done to increase adoption after their country adopts Bitcoin as a Reserve, what happens next?  Do they become disappointed and sell their Bitcoin because no more can be done?

Yes, but also no. Fiat is infinite, as long as they keep printing more fiat there is no plateau on the amount of money that can be thrown into Bitcoin. Sure there will be diminishing in the value being thrown, but there already is. A point where we reach a real plateau is so far away and so utopian that it should not even be brought into discussion at all IMHO. It is like asking this question: Everyone in the world has the amount of Bitcoin that they want, nobody wants more and everyone has it. Will the price fall because people will start to sell as no more adoption can happen?  

[legiteum]

Yes, but also no. Fiat is infinite, as long as they keep printing more fiat there is no plateau on the amount of money that can be thrown into Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is infinite too. Bitcoin's limit can be changed by modifying one line of code. At least for sovereign currencies there's often a democracy involved...

[free-bit.co.in]

100,000 signatures is too much and they probably lacked engagement.

Not everyone have time to sign and honestly majority of people just don't care. Getting 100,000 signature from 9 million population seems like a hard thing to do.

You won't even get this much signature easily from big country with big population like the U.S. without making noises and hype.

Switzerland has a population of nearly 9 million, and 100k signatures represent only about 1% of its population. Not to mention, over 25% of the Swiss population invests in and owns crypto.

That means they do not necessarily lack the time or are too lazy to collect signatures. In fact, it seems that people still have faith in the current system. They consider Bitcoin to be a speculative asset and not really suitable for inclusion in national reserves.


https://www.finews.com/news/english-news/63858-digitales-gold-kyrptowacrypto-bitcoin-switzerland-study-bitpandaehrungen-begeistern-junge-schweizer-2

[BitBrainers]

Where I'm however not nuanced is that it should be clear that a Bitcoin landscape with governments capturing too much of the supply would be very risky regarding a possible government cartel influencing Bitcoin development.

This is the risk nobody in the mainstream reserve conversation is discussing. The question is not whether governments buying Bitcoin is bullish for price. It obviously is. The question is what happens when governments collectively hold enough supply to coordinate. Gold lost its monetary role precisely when enough of it concentrated in central bank vaults. The price went up for decades before that happened. The outcome was still the removal of gold from the monetary system entirely.

[Faisal2202]

Does this 'adoption' not still relate to the fact that they want a more expensive Bitcoin so they can make more money off of it?  When I read about 'Bitcoin adoption', it pretty much means the same thing to me.

People are very short sighted in my opinion.  If this was the 'only way' to increase adoption then what happens if this initiative is successful?  There is a point where the Bitcoin adoption rate reaches a peak.  We have to accept that.  Unlimited growth is impossible.  So if no other thing can be done to increase adoption after their country adopts Bitcoin as a Reserve, what happens next?  Do they become disappointed and sell their Bitcoin because no more can be done?

I can’t agree more with you, because what happens next is an absolute blind spot for most participants. They all just care about adoption because they want to see their bags pumping and making them some profit. They don't want decentralized sovereignty, they just want more fiat purchasing power at the end of the day. And if I say more than 90% of us are doing it, I don't think I would be wrong.

Now speaking about peak adoption, which is a harsh reality check, even when a sovereign state like Switzerland or the US officially checks the box and puts BTC on their balance sheet, the speculative cycle will definitely hit its final ceiling because there won’t be any bigger fish left to buy into the hype. Maybe aliens could be caught, but they have not been discovered yet haha, although they have released those UFO files too, which I looked at and are full of nonsense haha.

Anyway, what happens next if the chart goes flat at the peak? I think, just like gold, it will shift from the monetization phase to the asset maturity phase, in which it moves from a growing state to a stable state because we both know unlimited growth is impossible. Those who sell at the peak, thinking it has hit the ceiling, will be considered as cleansing the weak hands, just like the little cleansing that happens at new ATH before it creates the final ATH each cycle.

In the final mature asset phase, people will hold it not to make 10x, but they will just be looking for an unconfiscatable life raft.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Does this 'adoption' not still relate to the fact that they want a more expensive Bitcoin so they can make more money off of it?  When I read about 'Bitcoin adoption', it pretty much means the same thing to me.

A "more expensive" bitcoin is one with more liquidity. A Bitcoin with more liquidity is one with less volatility. A Bitcoin with less volatility is one that is more attractive to put your wealth into. So yes, I would argue that number-go-up is actually intrinsically linked to adoption.

Adoption includes the "adoption as a medium of exchange". But it cannot become adoption as medium of exchange overnight. People need to convert their cash balances to it, and then it will naturally become currency.

[treesintheforestooh]

Wow.

This is really surprising and a bit disappointing.

You'd think they would want, at least, a smidgen of Bitcoin in the reserves. <smh>

Well, they'll be buying at higher levels, ha.

[sokani]

100,000 signatures is too much and they probably lacked engagement.

Not everyone have time to sign and honestly majority of people just don't care. Getting 100,000 signature from 9 million population seems like a hard thing to do.

You won't even get this much signature easily from big country with big population like the U.S. without making noises and hype.

I don't know the reason for the low participation in the online signature, but if you look at it crucially, 100,000 signatures is not too much to ask for. The campaign lasted for 18 months, which should give many persons ample time to participate, but only 50,000 votes were collected. If you compare that with the adult population of 7.3 million people, that's poor.

[Alphakilo]

100,000 signatures is too much and they probably lacked engagement.

Not everyone have time to sign and honestly majority of people just don't care. Getting 100,000 signature from 9 million population seems like a hard thing to do.

You won't even get this much signature easily from big country with big population like the U.S. without making noises and hype.

I don't know the reason for the low participation in the online signature, but if you look at it crucially, 100,000 signatures is not too much to ask for. The campaign lasted for 18 months, which should give many persons ample time to participate, but only 50,000 votes were collected. If you compare that with the adult population of 7.3 million people, that's poor.

Not every part of Switzerland does not adopt Bitcoin because Lugano which is a city in southern  Switzerland, uses Bitcoin as an open payment network. This shows how an SNB permission is unimportant to build a working and efficient local Bitcoin ecosystem that allows Bitcoin to be spent on a daily basis.

One thing with Bitcoin is how it doesn't need permission for institutional adoption and with what Lugano and Czech Republic did, that drives home my point.

If my country came up with the idea of waiting to get a 100,000 signatures before adopting Bitcoin as a reserve or legal tender, am sure they would get it in three days, because the economic situation mode right now is 'survival mode' and Bitcoin so far, has helped many citizens survive in these hard times.

[d5000]

Fiat currencies are not "strengthened" in purchasing power because the central bank increased their assets value. That's the definition of the fiat standard. What you are saying would make sense under a Gold / Bitcoin standard with peg ratio 1:1.

No, of course there is no peg and no 100% direct relation between reserves value/purchasing power. What I mean is that reserves contribute to the confidence in national currency.

What is happening right now is this: States are bagholders of US dollars which faceless bankers can create out of thin air. What I'm suggesting is: instead of holding this junk and let those bankers steal from foreign countries through inflation, would it not be better if those States moved towards some tangible sovereignty by selling some of their junk bag holdings for bitcoin?

If it's reserve USD which are sold for BTC (and not gold or other commodities), I can even agree a bit ... at least in this case the "strenghtening" aspect is countered by a weakening of the USD as a foreign fiat currency. I would consider such a move neutral for Bitcoin as long as the reserve is not too big.

But my stance about big Bitcoin reserves being potentially risky for the stability of the system due to the government/FATF cartel problem I mentioned in the answer to @Satofan44 will not change. I think the ideal situation would be a distribution with many small holders and no disproportionally big holders that could influence the developers, but governments as holders are imo a bit more risky than treasury companies, because treasury companies have to obey the market and cannot take their decisions only based on a centralist/anti-privacy ideology.

[DiMarxist]

Going through your thread it's obvious that the government of the day which initially wanted crypto to be a national reserve were no longer in power and since a new government which were curious about crypto in your own words, you don't expect such a government to be crypto friendly at the end of the day. So one should not be surprised that the bar was raised so high as the part of the criterias for the legalization of crypto currency. The citizens should just wait until the so called target is ment so they can push once again for the government to make crypto legal and even making it as part of their national reserve in the country.

[Satofan44]

That means they do not necessarily lack the time or are too lazy to collect signatures. In fact, it seems that people still have faith in the current system. They consider Bitcoin to be a speculative asset and not really suitable for inclusion in national reserves.

No, that is not what it means. Stop inventing conclusions from data where there isn't sufficient information to draw one.

Where I'm however not nuanced is that it should be clear that a Bitcoin landscape with governments capturing too much of the supply would be very risky regarding a possible government cartel influencing Bitcoin development.

This is the risk nobody in the mainstream reserve conversation is discussing. The question is not whether governments buying Bitcoin is bullish for price. It obviously is. The question is what happens when governments collectively hold enough supply to coordinate. Gold lost its monetary role precisely when enough of it concentrated in central bank vaults. The price went up for decades before that happened. The outcome was still the removal of gold from the monetary system entirely.

There is a risk, but I don't think that they can do that much unless we are talking about extreme levels of centralization, for example something like more than 90%. These things are fundamentally different, even if they share some properties you can't just copy the exact same attack vector and believe it would work out the same way.

Now speaking about peak adoption, which is a harsh reality check, even when a sovereign state like Switzerland or the US officially checks the box and puts BTC on their balance sheet, the speculative cycle will definitely hit its final ceiling because there won’t be any bigger fish left to buy into the hype.

Nonsense, this is a false claim that I have already destroyed so stop reiterating false information. There is no ceiling and you need to stop living in fairy tales. There is so much wealth around that could go into Bitcoin, you simply have no idea because you are not good with numbers as 99.99% of users here aren't. The USA having a 100k BTC reserve is not the same as them having a 1M reserve. Only after big countries start trying to establish their own reserves will you see just how much wealth is on the sidelines. We are not even at 1% of the current potential, and the potential is rising each year.

But my stance about big Bitcoin reserves being potentially risky for the stability of the system due to the government/FATF cartel problem I mentioned in the answer to @Satofan44 will not change. I think the ideal situation would be a distribution with many small holders and no disproportionally big holders that could influence the developers, but governments as holders are imo a bit more risky than treasury companies, because treasury companies have to obey the market and cannot take their decisions only based on a centralist/anti-privacy ideology.

Find me a single thing that the world has adopted or done in an utopian way such as the scenario that you describe. Ultimately, the fault and blame lies on the average person for us not being able to live in such a scenario. Most of the average people are extremely stupid, barely educated enough just to speak and write, and not interested in anything important or meaningful in life. You are too soft on them.