Bitcoin Suisse says Switzerland is losing ground as a crypto hub

Bitcoin Suisse is cutting half of its Swiss workforce as it shifts operations abroad, a stark signal from one of Zug’s best-known crypto firms. The company plans to eliminate 60 of its 120 Swiss jobs, following an announcement in September, CEO Andrej Majcen said in an interview with financial news agency AWP. Some operations are moving overseas as the firm seeks to lower costs and redirect its business towards wealth management.

Majcen says the company has tracked global cryptocurrency adoption and the development of regulatory frameworks. Switzerland, once a leading destination for the sector, no longer appears among the top countries in Bitcoin Suisse’s assessment. “In this ranking, Switzerland no longer features among the top countries,” he said.

The move reaches beyond one company’s balance sheet. Bitcoin Suisse has been a key pillar of Crypto Valley Zug, the cluster that helped put Switzerland on the international crypto map. Its retrenchment adds a concrete business consequence to Majcen’s argument that the country has lost momentum.

Zug’s crypto boom once made Switzerland a global reference point. In the 2010s, Crypto Valley attracted founders, investors and policy attention. Majcen recalls that people from the cryptocurrency world were so prevalent in Zug that “you couldn’t go into any restaurant without bumping into someone” from the sector.

The Zug-based Ethereum Foundation’s token sale, carried out with Bitcoin Suisse’s support, became a model for the initial coin offering boom. That wave peaked in 2017, when billions flowed into cryptocurrency companies. Swiss officials also promoted the country as a crypto hub. Majcen points to former government ministers Ueli Maurer and Johann Schneider-Ammann, and to the financial regulator FINMA under then-director Mark Branson, as part of that period of support for innovation.

Majcen says the contrast with recent years is pronounced. “We’ve noticed that cryptocurrencies aren’t a priority in Switzerland,” he said, adding that other markets have established regulatory frameworks while Switzerland has seen little movement over the past five or six years. He says political attention has also faded, particularly at the Federal Palace since the UBS-CS affair.

Bitcoin Suisse is recasting itself as an international financial services provider, with wealth management taking a larger role. Majcen says the firm is targeting institutional clients and high-net-worth individuals as it relocates some operations and reduces its cost base.

The company expects to move certain back-office activities to its headquarters in Bratislava, Slovakia. Majcen says wage costs there can be 60% to 70% lower in some cases. “In the long term, our high cost base in Switzerland simply doesn’t make sense,” he said.

The change reflects a practical calculation for a company operating across markets: work that can be done from a lower-cost location is being shifted, while the business focuses more heavily on wealth-management services. For Zug, the cuts put pressure on the image of Crypto Valley as a place where international crypto firms can build and expand. Bitcoin Suisse’s decision does not erase the region’s history, but it shows how a prominent local player is adapting its operations to a business environment Majcen sees as more attractive elsewhere.

Majcen expects the Binance theft to remain a company security incident rather than a lasting blow to confidence in cryptocurrency. Hackers believed to be from North Korea stole digital assets worth about $6.3 billion (CHF 5.16 billion) from the world’s largest crypto platform in the previous week. Binance has since reimbursed customers for around 95% of the stolen funds using its own reserves.

Majcen said the incident concerned the operational security of one company and offered no new insight into the underlying technology. He also expressed confidence that Binance would handle the case transparently and publish relevant information.

For Switzerland, the wider business question is whether the country can regain the regulatory and political attention that helped Crypto Valley grow. Bitcoin Suisse is already making its own answer through a smaller Swiss workforce, operations abroad and a stronger wealth-management focus. The firm’s choices put the spotlight on the competition for crypto businesses, where operating costs and regulatory frameworks shape decisions about where companies place work and build services.