sport football: The Swiss National Bank’s Three Big Mistakes About Crypto

March 26, 2025 | Listen Online | Read Online

The Swiss National Bank's Three Big Mistakes About Crypto

"We do not have plans to buy crypto assets."

Those are words from Martin Schlegel, the head of the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

I believe he'll come to regret them.

During an interview last week, Bloomberg TV asked Schlegel whether he supported an initiative that would require the Swiss National Bank to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet.

If proponents of the initiative manage to collect 100,000 signatures by June 2026, the country is required to hold a referendum on the issue.

Obviously, Schlegel opposes the initiative.

Friends, this isn't the first time I've seen central bankers smear digital assets. I saw something similar play out in 2018.

Back then, the Polish central bank admitted it hired a firm to spread a "smear campaign" against crypto. And former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chair Christine Lagarde – now European Central Bank head – said central banks should band together against crypto.

At the time, I called it the "Great Crypto Conspiracy."

Regulators and the press were drowning the market in negative news. And while the average investor was panic-selling, institutions were getting in at the best prices.

Since its lows during the Great Crypto Conspiracy of 2018, bitcoin is up 2,704%.

Today, I'll explain why Schlegel – and anyone who follows him – is making a huge mistake by dismissing this asset class.

SNB's Three "Arguments" Against Bitcoin Don't Make Sense

Since 2017, I've been predicting the world's central banks would hold bitcoin as a reserve currency on their balance sheets like they do with gold and U.S. dollars.

And that prediction is unfolding…

Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve for the United States. This reserve would hold any bitcoin acquired or seized by the U.S. government.

The United States isn't alone. Brazil, the Czech Republic, and Russia are also exploring strategic bitcoin reserves.

Despite popular support for adding bitcoin to Switzerland's balance sheet, Schlegel dismisses it as a "niche phenomenon."

One reason he believes bitcoin is un-investible is because it's "software." And "software has bugs."

Friends, that's like saying you can't own Microsoft because its Windows software might have bugs.

ALL software has bugs.

One of the most infamous being Windows' "blue screen of death" error that crashes your entire computer. Yet that hasn't stopped Microsoft growing its market cap from $780 million in 1986 to as much as $3.5 trillion.

Like Microsoft (and all other software-based companies), bitcoin has had catastrophic bugs in its code in the past:

In 2010, a fault in bitcoin's code would've allowed an attacker to "print" 184.4 billion BTC.
In 2013, another bug caused the bitcoin chain to "split." This temporarily created two versions of bitcoin before being fixed.
In 2018, a vulnerability in bitcoin's code would've allowed an attacker to inflate bitcoin's supply and crash the network.

Why didn't these catastrophic bugs kill bitcoin?

Because just like Microsoft (and, again, all other software companies), the bugs were patched, and the network carried on. Software bugs are a fact of all software development.

What matters is how bugs are handled. Again and again, bitcoin has proven its incentive mechanisms are so well-aligned that problems are fixed quickly… The same way they're fixed quickly by the biggest publicly traded software companies.

Given Schlegel's distaste for software, does that mean the SNB owns no software stocks?

On the contrary, SNB is a HUGE owner of software firms.

As of December 31, 2024, the bank had $198 billion invested in stocks. About $30 billion of that in software companies like Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia.

Each of those companies has experienced devastating software failures, bugs, and breaches. Yet, each is still here today. And each is still in the SNB's portfolio.

So, the idea that because bitcoin is just "software" and that somehow makes it less valuable is laughable.

Schlegel went on to say that bitcoin was too volatile and lacked liquidity to be useful in furthering Switzerland's monetary policy.

Let's talk about liquidity for a second.

Meta's daily volume is about $4-8 billion. And for Apple, it's about $10-$15 billion. Meanwhile, bitcoin trades $20-40 billion 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

As for volatility, between 2021 and 2022, Meta dropped as much as 77% (about the same as bitcoin that year)… Amazon, 56%… Nvidia, 67%… Microsoft, 40%… And Apple, 30%.

So clearly, SNB is OK with volatility. It's OK with owning assets that have less liquidity than bitcoin. And it's OK with owning software firms.

So what's the real problem?

Bitcoin Is Odd

Bitcoin is different. Bitcoin is odd. And odd and different are things central bankers just don't do. At least not right away.

Bitcoin doesn't have cash flows. It doesn't have a management team. No government has any legal authority over it. No one controls it. No one can block it.

Transactions on the bitcoin blockchain are final. That means no one can undo a "fat finger" trade or theft.

All of that makes bitcoin "scary" to own. Especially for central bankers.

But it doesn't make bitcoin a bad investment. It just makes it different from all other investments that came before it. The same way that stocks, commodities, options, and countless other derivatives were new "investments" at one point in time.

The SNB's reluctance to buy bitcoin is a massive gift to the investing public. Because when the SNB does decide to buy bitcoin – which it absolutely will – it will be completely price insensitive.

Think about it.

When you have a printing press that can create money from thin air, how price sensitive do you think you would be? Does price even matter if you can mint money from nothing?

How do you think the SNB paid for its $198 billion stock portfolio?

It printed Swiss francs… Used the francs to buy U.S. dollars… And used the dollars to buy U.S. stocks.

At some point in the not-too-distant future, every single major central bank will do the same thing with bitcoin.

Friends, hear me when I tell you this: By the end of this decade, bitcoin will be trading over $1 million per coin. And this year, I expect it to hit at least $150,000. That's almost double from today's prices.

Bitcoin is still cheap. But not so cheap that it can change your life from a small initial investment. Not anymore.

One area I've been harping on about that is still small enough to change your life from a handful of modest investments is AI coins. Specifically, AI Agent coins.

You are making a huge financial mistake if you don't have exposure to the AI Agent trend. Even a few hundred dollars spread among the top names in this space could prove to be life-changing.

To find out more on this emerging AI trend, go here to get free access to my latest research on AI Agents and how they are set to explode in value.

Let the Game Come to You!

Big T