Martin Schlegel, the head of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), has rejected the idea of diversifying the country's reserves with Bitcoin, Reuters reports.
Schlegel has stated that the leading cryptocurrency is unable to fulfill the existing requirements for its reserves, pointing to its high volatility.
As reported by U.Today, a new initiative was announced in December to amend the Swiss constitution in order to diversify the bank's assets with Bitcoin.
In order to be considered by the country's parliament, the initiative will have to collect a total of 100,000 signatures before June 30.
Back in 2021, a similar initiative failed, but Bitcoin advocates are hopeful that the momentum created by the pro-crypto U-turn in the US could carry over to Switzerland.
Switzerland is known as one of the most crypto-friendly countries in the world, but it might not go as far as amending its constitution to buy Bitcoin.
The total value of SNB's reserves stands at more than $900 billion. Foreign exchange reserves, which are diversified across the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, and other currencies, account for the majority of them. The bank's gold reserves stand at $94 billion.
No domino effect
After the US established a strategic Bitcoin reserve in March, some Bitcoin advocates expected that this would kickstart the domino effect, with other major economies following suit. However, major economies like Japan have refrained from embracing Bitcoin. As reported by U.Today, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde categorically rejected the idea of EU central banks adding Bitcoin to their reserves.
It is now clear whether the US itself will purchase Bitcoin, given that the much-hyped SBR will initially contain only forfeited coins.
BTC
Vladislav Sopov