Swiss Bitcoin Reserve Campaign Ends After Collecting Nearly 50,000 Signatures
Swiss campaigners are abandoning their effort to force the Swiss National Bank to hold bitcoin reserves after gathering only about half the required signatures for a national referendum. The proposal, which sought to amend the constitution, had been rejected last year by the SNB over liquidity and volatility concerns. Bitcoin traded at $80,516.80, up 0.48 percent, as the news emerged.
cointelegraph.comSwiss campaigners are dropping their bid for the Swiss National Bank to hold bitcoin reserves after collecting about half of the 100,000 signatures needed for a national referendum. The group had 18 months to gather signatures and push for the country’s direct democracy to vote on the subject. They will now abandon the effort, CoinDesk reported on May 9, 2026.
The initiative sought to amend Switzerland's constitution to require the Swiss National Bank to hold BTC alongside gold and foreign-currency reserves. The Federal Chancellery listed the proposal as an amendment to Switzerland’s Federal Constitution, requiring part of the SNB’s monetary reserves to be held in gold and bitcoin. The text of the proposal did not specify an allocation.
The campaign had framed bitcoin as a neutral reserve asset and a hedge against exposure to dollar- and euro-denominated holdings, which supporters said make up roughly three-quarters of the SNB’s foreign-currency reserves. The SNB rejected the proposal last year. It opposed adding bitcoin to its reserves over concerns regarding bitcoin’s liquidity and volatility.
48 percent at the time of publication. m. and was written by Francisco Rodrigues and edited by Nikhilesh De, CoinDesk reported.
The decision ends an 18-month signature drive that fell well short of the threshold required to trigger a nationwide vote. Campaigners had hoped to leverage Switzerland’s system of direct democracy to mandate a diversification of the central bank’s holdings beyond traditional assets.
