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Switzerland’s Bitcoin Reserve Dream Shattered! Petition Falls Half Short of Signatures Needed for a Referendum, Crypto Fantasies Completely Dashed

Switzerland, long known for financial openness and home to the globally renowned “Crypto Valley,” ultimately failed to let Bitcoin squeeze through the door of central bank reserves. This widely publicized Bitcoin reserve allocation proposal ended in total failure: the petition signatures fell short of the referendum threshold by half, delivering a decisive verdict and smashing the wild daydreams of cryptocurrency enthusiasts straight into the reality they couldn’t escape.

The initiators of this proposal—hardcore believers in the crypto world—launched the “Bitcoin Initiative” with great excitement. Their single-minded goal was to amend the Swiss Constitution and pressure the Swiss National Bank to place Bitcoin alongside gold, the U.S. dollar, and the euro, bringing them into the scope of official reserve assets. In their view, Bitcoin is “digital gold” that transcends the traditional fiat currency system: a fixed total supply and globally borderless transaction characteristics. They believed it could help Switzerland firmly uphold financial sovereignty, give central bank reserves an extra layer of hard-core confidence, and even allow Switzerland to seize absolute first-mover advantage in the global crypto finance race. To make it happen, the organizing team threw everything they had into it—traveling around Switzerland to spread the word, and feverishly painting the public with a beautiful blueprint of Bitcoin strengthening central bank reserves. At one point, the crypto community was swept up with excitement, convinced that Switzerland was about to move ahead of central banks around the world.

But a beautiful dream doesn’t always survive contact with reality. Under Switzerland’s direct democracy rules, to initiate a referendum on constitutional amendments, it is necessary to gather 100,000 valid signatures within 18 months—an immovable threshold. These crypto supporters busied themselves for nearly a year and a half, and by the end there were only a few weeks left on the clock. They were full of hope that they could clear the threshold—until, after the signatures were counted, they were stunned. They had only managed to collect about 50,000 signatures, exactly half of what was required. That meant they never even got their ticket into the referendum, leaving absolutely no possibility of a comeback.

Why, in Switzerland—a country steeped in crypto culture—did this proposal hit a wall? Put simply, the Swiss central bank had already poured cold water on this fantasy long ago. Central bank officials repeatedly made it clear that Bitcoin’s price behaves like a roller coaster—its volatility is absurdly high—and its liquidity fails to meet the requirements for central bank reserve assets. After all, the core pursuit of central bank reserves is safety, stability, and value preservation. With its speculative attributes taken to the extreme, Bitcoin simply cannot shoulder the responsibility of safeguarding national financial stability. And ordinary people aren’t clueless either. Compared with the big promises painted by the crypto crowd, people place more trust in steadier reserve assets like gold and foreign exchange. They don’t want to bet the country’s financial security on Bitcoin’s uncertainties, so naturally they are unwilling to sign on easily in support.

As soon as the initiators officially announced they were giving up on pushing it forward, this farce of Bitcoin trying to enter the Swiss central bank reserves came to a brief and abrupt end. Switzerland, with its Crypto Valley, still remains open to the crypto industry, but when it comes to the nation’s financial foundation and central bank reserves, it chose to hold the line on prudence. This also delivered a reality check to the global crypto community: getting conservative and rigorous central banks to accept high-risk assets like Bitcoin has never been something you can achieve with nothing but passion. For now, this Bitcoin reserve fantasy can only be temporarily shelved, with no telling when—if ever—it might be brought up again.