While cryptocurrencies have the potential to facilitate lightning fast payments across borders, reduce the cost of minting fiat money and drastically put inflation in check, the Swiss Central Bank board director, Thomas Moser has declared that digital currencies still do not have what it takes to be a national currency. Therefore, the nation will not launch the e-franc anytime soon.

Present at the 2018 Blockchain conference held in Zug, Switzerland, on June 21, 2018, the apex bank official reiterated that it is not yet clear to him if blockchain technology and digital currencies could have any meaningful impact on the traditional finance ecosystem.

Moreover, the distributed ledger technology and digital assets industry is still at a very nascent stage. Therefore all plans to develop an e-franc have been shelved indefinitely.

It’s worthy of note that in May 2018, reports emerged that the Swiss Federal Council, which is the collective executive head of government and state of Switzerland had called for a study into the feasibility of developing a national cryptocurrency that would be backed by the nation as a legal tender.

“It asks that the proposal be adopted to examine the risks and opportunities of an e-franc and to clarify the legal, economic and financial aspects of the e-franc,” said  the Vice President of the Social Democratic Party, Cedric Wermuth at the time.

Moser not a Fan of Crypto

Moser condemned both blockchain tech and cryptos at the Zug conference, comparing them to the “useless innovation” of CDs, adding that digital music only indeed displaced analog music when streaming came on board.

“something similar has to happen with bitcoin. People will only switch to something new if it works better or is cheaper,” he said.

Switzerland Remains a Crypto-Friendly Nation

Despite the biased opinion of Moser, it doesn’t change the fact that Switzerland is a crypto friendly nation. The favorable regulation and vibrant digital currency ecosystem have made the country a hotbed for crypto-related businesses.

Back in April, the fourth largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Bitfinex announced it was heading to Switzerland due to the amenable regulation present in the country.

“We are looking for a new domicile for Bitfinex and the parent company IFinex, where we want to merge the operations previously spread over several locations. [it] would show that Switzerland can indeed occupy a leading position in the entire blockchain industry,” said Bitfinex at the time.

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