Anyone who builds a business model on digital assets was put to the test in 2025. After the exceptional year 2024, with its Blackrock Bitcoin ETF euphoria, prices turned: Bitcoin ended the year at around 69,600 francs (roughly $87,000) – 19 percent below its level twelve months earlier – while Ethereum shed as much as 24 percent.

Add to that falling interest rates, a dollar depreciating sharply against the franc, and, in October, a liquidation shock that rattled global digital asset markets. In short: every revenue source of any crypto bank – trading, custody, interest income – was under unfavorable conditions at the same time.

A Genuine Stress Test

It was thus the first real stress year since Sygnum and Amina…