The president of Swiss National Bank (SNB), Martin Schlegel, has rejected the idea of maintaining Bitcoin as part of the reserves of the Central Bank of Switzerland, citing a lack of stability, liquidity and security, according to local media.
Speaking to the Tamedia group, Schlegel cited three main concerns surrounding cryptocurrencies. The first is their volatility, which according to him makes them inappropriate for the preservation of long -term value.
“Secondly, our reserves must be highly liquid so that they can be used rapidly for monetary policy purposes if necessary,” Schlegel told Tamedia before pointing out the lack of security inherent in being active software based. “We all know that the software can have errors and other weak points.”
The words of the president of the National Bank of Switzerland occur in the midst of a growing debate in Switzerland about the nascent class of assets. A recent initiative is pressing for a constitutional amendment that requires SNB to maintain Bitcoin in its reserves along with gold, according to the article.
The initiative, launched in December and directed by businessman Yves Bennaim, does not go into details when it comes to Bitcoin’s assignments, but specifies that it must be built from the bank’s profits. He has 18 months to collect 100,000 signatures in an attempt to trigger a national vote on the subject.
Despite the growing acceptance of Switzerland of cryptocurrencies, with several Swiss banks that offer customers services related to cryptocurrencies, Schlegel dismissed the kind of assets as a “niche phenomenon.” The coins, he told Tamedia, have already been in competition, and Schlegel said that the bank “does not fear the competition of cryptocurrencies,” citing the continuous force of the Swiss Franc.
