ZURICH: The Swiss National Bank is against buying and holding bitcoin as a reserve currency, Chairman Thomas Jordan said at the central bank’s annual general meeting on Friday.

“Buying bitcoin is not a problem for us, we can do that either directly or can buy investment products which are based on bitcoin,” Jordan said. “We can arrange the technical and operative conditions relatively quickly, when we are convinced we must have bitcoin in 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 added.

Anti-climate change activists protested outside the meeting, held in Bern, demanding the SNB ended its investment in companies they say are contributing to global warming via carbon emissions.

“The Swiss National Bank invests billions in the fossil fuel industry every year,” said Nora Scheel from the group Campax.