A campaign to require the Swiss National Bank to hold Bitcoin is set to lapse after failing to gather enough signatures to trigger a national referendum. The initiative sought to amend Switzerland’s constitution to require the central bank to hold Bitcoin alongside gold and foreign currency assets, but organizers said they collected only about half of the 100,000 signatures required under Swiss law.
The Swiss National Bank has repeatedly opposed adding cryptocurrencies to its holdings, citing concerns about volatility and liquidity. Campaign founder Yves Bennaim told Reuters the effort was always considered unlikely to succeed, but said it helped advance debate around Bitcoin’s role in global finance.
While 2025 saw a wave of publicly traded companies adopt Bitcoin treasury strategies, sovereign adoption has remained limited. El Salvador holds 7,645 BTC as part of a sovereign strategy begun in 2021. Bhutan’s state-backed mining operations have seen reserves fall from 13,000 BTC at end of 2024 to roughly 3,654 BTC by April 2026. The three largest sovereign Bitcoin holders-the United States, China, and the United Kingdom-acquired their holdings primarily through criminal seizures.
In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, capitalized with government-held Bitcoin from forfeiture proceedings, stating that BTC held by the reserve shall not be sold.