Thomas Jordan, the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) Chairman, stated on Friday during a meeting that the central bank is against buying and holding Bitcoin (BTC) as a reserve currency citing concerns that it does not meet the requirements of currency reserves.
“Buying bitcoin is not a problem for us, we can do that either directly or can buy investment products which are based on bitcoin. We can arrange the technical and operative conditions relatively quickly when we are convinced we must have bitcoin on our balance sheet. But, from the current perspective, we do not believe bitcoin meets the requirements of currency reserves, that’s why we have until now decided not to have bitcoin on our balance sheet,” he noted.
Additionally, Jordan cited concerns in terms of global warming and the ending of its investments in companies that they are contributing to it via carbon emissions.
“It makes no sense for us to sell all our shares, they would just be bought by someone else. The important thing is that the economy can transform itself to produce less CO2 emissions. That should be done in a systematic and orderly manner. We are already seeing the problem in energy supply at present, with rising energy prices causing problems, especially for people with low incomes,” he added.
The comments come in the wake of protests made by anti-climate change activists outside the meeting held in Bern, demanding the SNB end the investment in such companies. However, they did not mention specifically Bitcoin and its environmental concerns as well.
BBVA and Cryptos in Switzerland
In the meantime, as reported at the end of last year by Finance Magnates, BBVA Switzerland, the Swiss division of the Spanish multinational financial services provider BBVA, announced the addition of Ethereum (ETH) to its crypto custody and trading service today. As a result, the private banking clients of BBVA Switzerland will be able to manage Bitcoin and Ethereum on its platform.
