Bitcoin Seminar Germany

Bitcoin's issuance is set by its own protocol, not by any single company or central bank. The Bitcoin whitepaper describes new coins entering circulation only through the first transaction in each block, moving toward a system that becomes "completely inflation free" once issuance stops. The Bitcoin Core source code enforces a hard cap of 21,000,000 BTC through the MAX_MONEY constant and halves the block subsidy roughly every four years, rules every node on the network checks independently.

That fixed supply schedule has no equivalent among the assets a DACH investor normally holds. A share count can grow through a capital raise, and a central bank can expand the money supply, but bitcoin's issuance curve is public and unchangeable without agreement across the entire network. An IMF study found that bitcoin's correlation with major stock indices was low before 2020, then rose more than four-fold against S&P 500 volatility after the pandemic began, evidence that the diversification case for bitcoin depends on the period measured.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland license bitcoin custody and trading through three separate regimes. In Germany, crypto custody became a licensed financial service under the Banking Act on 1 January 2020, and full MiCA licensing for crypto-asset service providers has applied since 30 December 2024. Austria's FMA took over supervision of crypto-asset service providers under MiCA from the same date, with a national transition deadline for existing providers at the end of 2025, shorter than the 18 months MiCA allows. Switzerland sits outside the EU and MiCA; FINMA instead sorts bitcoin as a payment token under anti-money laundering rules, not as a security, a framework the Swiss DLT Act completed on 1 August 2021 with rules for segregating crypto-based assets in a firm's bankruptcy.

Retail and institutional access routes now run through established banks in all three countries. DZ BANK's MiCA-licensed "meinKrypto" service lets customers of Germany's cooperative banks trade bitcoin through the VR Banking App, and Sparkasse customers can do the same through DekaBank's products. In Switzerland, Zuercher Kantonalbank and PostFinance both added bitcoin trading and custody to their banking apps, PostFinance with Sygnum as its custody partner. The SIX Swiss Exchange listed 384 crypto products in June 2026, 217 of them crypto ETPs across 23 underlying assets, giving a Swiss investor exchange-traded access alongside direct custody.

A BaFin survey from April 2026 found that about 13% of adults in Germany, more than nine million people, held crypto-assets, and that 54% of them wrongly believed bitcoin protects against inflation, a gap BaFin attributes to bitcoin's volatility. ESMA warns that an investor may lose the full amount invested in a crypto-asset, and MiCA sets up no investor compensation scheme for a crypto-asset service provider's clients across the EU, unlike deposit insurance on a bank account. Austrian tax law is direct about the position: income from cryptocurrency acquired after 28 February 2021 is taxed at a flat 27.5 percent, though swapping one cryptocurrency for another is not itself a taxable event.

The Finance Loop Bitcoin for Investors masterclass runs at several German locations, taught by Dr. Mathias Linkerhand, a lecturer at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and board member of the German Bitcoin Association. The one-day, German-language format covers bitcoin's risk and return profile, correlation with traditional assets, custody models and portfolio allocation, and Finance Loop connects the finance, IT and AI communities across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Finance Loop is a founding member of the German Bitcoin Association, formed to support the bitcoin industry, and is built in collaboration with TechQuartier and Frankfurt Main Finance. Related pages: bitcoin in Germany, crypto in Germany and MiCA in Germany.

The Finance Loop Bitcoin for Investors masterclass runs across several German cities for investors, asset managers, family offices and advisors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland alike. The Bitcoin for Investors masterclass covers portfolio fit, custody options and risk, not the mechanics of a first bitcoin purchase. Dates and booking are on the masterclass page.

Germany and Austria both apply MiCA, the EU's crypto-asset regulation, since 30 December 2024, with BaFin supervising in Germany and the FMA in Austria. Switzerland is outside the EU and regulates bitcoin under its own framework, treating it as a payment token subject to anti-money laundering rules, not a security, with FINMA as supervisor.

A private investor in Germany pays no tax on a bitcoin sale after a holding period of more than one year, with smaller gains staying tax free below 1,000 euros a year. Austria instead taxes crypto income at a flat 27.5% regardless of holding period, and Switzerland's treatment depends on whether the investor trades professionally or holds as a private individual.