FX168 Financial News (Asia Pacific) News Bitcoin is on the path to gold. Yves Bennaim (Yves Bennaïm), founder and chairman of 2B4CH, a Swiss think tank supporting Bitcoin, launched a popular initiative aimed at amending the country's constitution to allow the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to buy and hold Bitcoin.
Currently, this initiative requires valid signatures from 100,000 Swiss citizens within 18 months. Next, all Swiss citizens will be able to vote on this proposed constitutional amendment. Switzerland currently has a population of 8.77 million, which means that approximately 1.15% of locals are required to sign the petition.
“Adding Bitcoin to the central bank's asset reserve marks Switzerland's independence from the ECB, which helps protect the country's sovereignty and neutrality in an increasingly uncertain world situation,” Benheim emphasized.
Benaim said that preparations for this move have begun to take shape. In an interview with foreign media, he claimed that they are “preparing documents that must be submitted to the Prime Minister's Office to begin this process.”
Bitcoin.com reports that the idea of Bitcoin as a reserve asset and hedging geopolitical conflicts is taking shape. Benheim proposed initiating a popular consultation to amend the Constitution to include Bitcoin as a reserve asset that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) can hold.
(Source: Twitter)
The proposed amendments would revise a provision which requires the SNB to “create sufficient monetary reserves from its revenue, and some of these reserves are held in gold” to be interpreted as “part of these reserves is held in the form of gold and bitcoin.”
Benaim isn't the only one involved in the campaign, as he has already rallied the support of other Bitcoin supporters in the country. Luzius Meisser, president of asset management company Bitcoin Suisse, will also promote this initiative at the next banking conference.
He said, “My statement also has a marketing element, but I do believe that Bitcoin should become part of Switzerland's monetary reserves.”
“If the Swiss central bank adopts Benheim's proposal in 2022, Switzerland's national assets will be increased by CHF 30 billion, or about $32.9 billion, through the purchase of bitcoins.”
“If it misses this time and is later preempted by other central banks, Switzerland may need to buy Bitcoin at a higher price than others in the future,” he warned.
In 2022, the SNB ignored similar proposals, when Meisel and others suggested that the bank could buy Bitcoin at the cost of German bonds.
At the time, Swiss Central Bank Management Committee Chairman Thomas Jordan (Thomas Jordan) stated that Bitcoin did not meet the requirements as a currency reserve.
Despite this, supporters of this negotiation believe that the recent approval of the Bitcoin ETF tool in the US and Hong Kong may change the bank's position.
The actual case before the Swiss central bank was Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who fully embraced Bitcoin. The country officially listed Bitcoin as the national legal tender in September 2021, and between 2021 and 2022, it bought a total of 3,062 bitcoins at an average price of 40594.93 US dollars, with a total investment cost of about 124 million US dollars.