Zero of Eight: No Swiss Federal Party Mentions Crypto in Its Programme
Not one of Switzerland's eight federal parties mentions Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in its official party programme. Yet 11% of the population owns crypto, and parliamentarians are already legislating on it. A look at the gap between party doctrine and the parliamentary record.
Zero. That is how many of Switzerland's eight federal parties mention Bitcoin or cryptocurrency anywhere in their official party programme.
You might expect at least one. Instead there is silence across the board: SVP, SP, Die Mitte, FDP, Grüne, GLP, EVP and EDU. A Parteiprogramm is the document a voter is meant to read before casting a ballot. On this topic, every one of them is incomplete.
The context makes the silence harder to defend
Crypto is not a fringe interest in Switzerland. Two figures make that clear:
- 11% of the Swiss population currently own crypto assets, and another 6% have owned them in the past (HSLU IFZ, November 2024).
- 1,749 active blockchain companies operate in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, a 132% increase since 2020 (CV VC Crypto Valley Report, May 2025).
A topic that touches roughly one in six residents, alongside a fast-growing industry, has so far not earned a single sentence in any federal party's programme.
Part of it is structural
Some of the silence has an explanation. The SP last updated its programme in 2010, before crypto was politically relevant, and the party has since published separate position papers on digital assets. For the other seven parties, there is no equally clear reason.
Meanwhile, parliament is already legislating
Here is what makes the gap material. While the programmes stay quiet, parliamentarians are already drafting crypto law. Motion 21.4068, framed as a response to ransomware, asks the Federal Council to prohibit any cryptocurrency whose beneficial owner cannot be identified. For permissionless networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, that identification is structurally impossible. In practice, the motion would amount to a ban on cryptocurrencies.
It was co-signed by 23 parliamentarians across six parties: SVP, SP, Die Mitte, FDP, Grüne and GLP. Every one of those parties is silent on crypto in its own programme. The Federal Council recommended the motion be rejected.
Why this matters for voters
A voter who reads their party's programme today finds nothing on crypto, and may then discover a concrete party position only later, as a surprise in the parliamentary record. That is the wrong order. Voters should know where their party stands before they vote, not afterwards.
The next federal election is in autumn 2027, just over a year and a half away. There is still time for every party to address the topic in its next programme.
What should a party actually say about crypto?
That is the genuine open question. A right to self-custody? The tax treatment of digital assets? The role of the Swiss National Bank? Consumer protection and anti-money-laundering rules? Reasonable people will disagree, and a party programme is exactly the place to set out a position rather than leave it blank.
We have published an overview of where each federal party programme stands on crypto, covering Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the USA. You can read it at kryptopolitik.ch/party-programmes/ch.
Sources
This article is based on a post first published on LinkedIn. Read the original post and join the discussion there.