There are efforts in Switzerland to change the Swiss Federal Constitution to require the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to hold Bitcoin as part of its currency reserves in addition to gold.
This groundbreaking initiative, officially registered in the Federal Gazette on December 31, 2024, aims to place Switzerland at the forefront of global Bitcoin adoption.
The proposal and its architects
The initiative, titled “For a Financially Healthy, Sovereign and Responsible Switzerland,” was led by Giw Zanganeh, Tether’s vice president of energy and mining, along with Yves Bennaïm, founder of the Swiss non-profit Bitcoin think tank 2B4CH. Eight other Bitcoin advocates collaborated on the proposal, which requires 100,000 signatures by June 30, 2026 to trigger a national referendum. This threshold corresponds to approximately 1.12% of Switzerland’s 8.92 million inhabitants.
Source: Bitcoin Initiative about X
If successful, the proposed amendment would amend Article 99 paragraph 3 of the Swiss Federal Constitution to state: “The National Bank shall create sufficient foreign reserves from its own income; Some of these reserves consist of gold and Bitcoin.”
Building momentum for Bitcoin in Switzerland
This initiative follows years of preparation and a previous attempt at 2B4CH in 2021 that was postponed due to limited public and institutional support. Bennaïm noted that the current environment was more conducive to such a proposal, explaining: “We have been waiting for the right time. Now everything is falling into place.”
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