A municipality in Switzerland has launched a blockchain-powered biodiversity incentive system that rewards residents for participating in environmental restoration projects, marking one of the country’s first operational municipal blockchain deployments tied directly to public services and local commerce.
The initiative, called BIDI, has gone live in Muri bei Bern in the Canton of Bern and uses the Hedera distributed ledger network to issue digital biodiversity vouchers pegged to the Swiss franc. The project’s payment layer runs on Swisscoast’s HCHF stablecoin infrastructure, a digital payment instrument pegged 1:1 to the Swiss franc, allowing residents and merchants to avoid exchange-rate volatility often associated with blockchain-based payment systems. Residents who take part in approved conservation activities can redeem the vouchers at participating local businesses within the municipality.
The system was developed through a partnership involving Swiss Web3 engineering firm The Hashgraph Group, blockchain company Swisscoast, and digital transformation firm Apps with Love. Municipal authorities said the project replaces a paper-based voucher program that had been operating locally for around eight years.
Under the program, volunteers receive one digital voucher worth 1 Swiss franc for activities including meadow restoration, hedge maintenance, wetland repair work, riparian zone rehabilitation, and invasive plant removal. Unlike many blockchain pilots that remain experimental, the Muri bei Bern system is already functioning as part of an active municipal environmental Biodiversity Initiative.
Blockchain Moves Beyond Finance Into Civic Infrastructure
The rollout reflects a broader shift in how European municipalities are testing distributed ledger technology outside traditional cryptocurrency and financial use cases, increasingly within a controlled Swiss stablecoin sandbox environment.
While Switzerland has long been associated with digital asset startups and blockchain finance infrastructure, the BIDI project applies blockchain technology to local environmental administration and volunteer coordination instead of speculative trading or token investment products. Project partners said the on-chain system creates a verifiable record of ecological work completed by residents while simplifying voucher issuance and settlement for municipal authorities.
The voucher infrastructure was intentionally designed so that other municipalities could adopt similar systems without building blockchain infrastructure independently. Project participants described the framework as a reusable or “white-label” model that could allow other Swiss municipalities to integrate into the existing HCHF and Hedera infrastructure with lower deployment costs and shorter implementation timelines, reducing technical barriers for smaller local governments with limited digital transformation budgets.
The project also received support from The Hashgraph Association through its Enterprise Accelerator Program, which focuses on enterprise and public-sector blockchain applications.
Stablecoin Policy Developments Form Regulatory Backdrop
The launch comes as Switzerland continues expanding its regulatory framework for stablecoins and tokenized payment systems.
Swiss regulators opened consultations in late 2025 on a proposed licensing structure for stablecoin issuers under oversight from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). The framework would require reserve-backed issuance models, redemption guarantees, and dedicated licensing categories for digital payment instruments. The evolving regulatory structure has provided additional institutional legitimacy for projects such as BIDI because the system operates using a reserve-backed digital payment instrument rather than a volatile cryptocurrency.
Switzerland’s approach has also emerged alongside broader international efforts to regulate payment stablecoins, including the United States’ GENIUS Act framework introduced in 2025. Analysts say projects like BIDI could serve as practical test environments for how tokenized payment systems function in low-risk public-sector settings before wider government adoption.
The environmental positioning of the project also aligns with Hedera’s strategy of promoting sustainability-focused blockchain applications. Hedera states that its network maintains a carbon-negative footprint through energy-efficient infrastructure and carbon offset purchases exceeding network energy consumption. The biodiversity voucher structure additionally creates a localized circular economy within Muri bei Bern, as vouchers earned through environmental work can only be redeemed at participating businesses inside the municipality, directly linking conservation activity with local commercial spending.
Local officials and project developers said the platform could eventually expand to additional Swiss municipalities and potentially other European regions exploring blockchain-based public administration systems. Rather than introducing a speculative crypto token, the initiative focuses on digitizing an existing public-service mechanism already familiar to residents and local businesses.
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