Investors

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I have held Bitcoin for years and sell occasionally, so will Switzerland tax my gains? No, provided you qualify as a private investor under the Circular 36 criteria or the overall assessment. Long holding, low turnover, no borrowing and no derivatives speculation point to private wealth. You pay wealth tax on the year-end value at the FTA price and income tax on any staking or lending income. Keep records of every transaction, because the burden of showing private-investor status is yours.¹

And Singapore? No, provided the holding is capital in nature under the badges of trade. Singapore has no wealth tax and no capital gains tax, which makes the characterisation question the only one that matters. Staking and lending income is taxable if it is income from a trade or from a source in Singapore. The risk arises if you trade frequently or if you hold through a company that is part of a multinational group and disposes of foreign assets without Singapore substance (s. 10L).²

Is my money safe on a Swiss exchange if the exchange fails? Safer than on most, if the exchange is an SRO member and structures custody for segregation under Art. 242a DEBA. Ask the exchange for its wallet architecture and its auditor's report on client-asset segregation. If the exchange offers yield on your deposits, the assets you earn yield on are lent and are not segregated. The FlowBank case showed that the segregation rules work for crypto held in custody and that fiat deposits above the CHF 100,000 depositor protection limit are unsecured.³

Is my money safe on a Singapore exchange if the exchange fails? Since 4 April 2024 licensed DPT providers must hold customer assets on trust in segregated wallets and must reconcile daily. Before that date, protection depended on the terms of service, as the Hodlnaut and Zipmex customers learned when "earn" products made them unsecured creditors. Check that the exchange appears on MAS's register of licensees and does not merely sit on its list of exempt applicants. Read the custody terms for the word "trust" and for any right of the exchange to use your assets.⁴

Someone stole my tokens, so can a court get them back for me? A court can freeze them where they land and order the exchange that holds them to disclose the account holder. Singapore courts grant proprietary injunctions and disclosure orders against exchanges within days, including against persons unknown. Swiss courts grant provisional measures and attachments against assets at Swiss custodians. Recovery depends on where the tokens stop moving, because tokens that reach a compliant exchange can be recovered while tokens that are mixed or bridged to a non-cooperating jurisdiction usually cannot. Act within hours and file a criminal complaint alongside the civil application.⁵

I have lost my seed phrase, so is there a tax or legal consequence? In Switzerland the tokens remain your property for wealth tax purposes until you can show they are irretrievably lost. The cantonal practice accepts a written declaration with evidence (the address, the circumstances) to remove them from the wealth tax base. No loss deduction is available to a private investor, because private capital losses are as irrelevant as private capital gains. In Singapore no tax consequence follows unless you traded, in which case the loss may be deductible as a trading loss if proved.⁶

Can I invest in a crypto fund from Switzerland or Singapore? Yes. In Switzerland, Swiss crypto funds approved by FINMA exist, L-QIFs are open to qualified investors, and exchange-traded products on SIX are open to everyone. Foreign funds may be offered to qualified investors without approval and to retail investors only after FINMA approval and the appointment of a Swiss representative. In Singapore, licensed fund managers offer crypto funds to accredited and institutional investors, and retail access is restricted to the few products MAS has authorised.⁷

Will my bank or exchange report my crypto to the tax authorities? From 1 January 2026 Swiss reporting crypto-asset service providers collect self-certifications and will report 2026 transactions to the FTA in 2027 for exchange with partner jurisdictions. Singapore follows with first exchanges in 2028, while custodians that are financial institutions report under the amended CRS from the same dates. If your tax residence is in a partner jurisdiction, your crypto will be reported. If you have undeclared holdings, the voluntary disclosure window is closing.⁸

Notes

1. DFTA Art. 16 para. 3; FTA Circular No. 36; see Part G, Chapter II. ↩
2. Income Tax Act 1947, ss. 10(1) and 10L; see Part M, Chapters I and II. ↩
3. DEBA Art. 242a; BankA Art. 37a (privileged deposits); see Part D, Chapter IV and Part H, Chapter VII. ↩
4. Payment Services Regulations 2019 as amended in 2024; Re Hodlnaut and Re Zipmex, discussed in Part J, Chapter V. ↩
5. CLM v CLN (2022) SGHC 46; Janesh s/o Rajkumar v Unknown Person (2022) SGHC 264; CPC Art. 261 ff.; see Part N, Chapter III and Part H, Chapter V. ↩
6. The treatment of lost keys is at Part D, Chapter I (property) and Part G, Chapter III (wealth tax). ↩
7. CISA Art. 120 ff. (foreign funds); SFA Part 13, Division 2 (collective investment schemes); see Part E, Chapter VI and Part K, Chapter IV. ↩
8. The CARF implementation timelines are at Part G, Chapter VII and Part M, Chapter VII. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.