Solana is one of the coins Swiss banks have added most often in recent years. If you live in Switzerland and want SOL, you no longer have to open an account abroad: PostFinance, Swissquote, Lucerne Cantonal Bank and, since July 2026, Ticino’s BancaStato sell it inside their normal e-banking. And SIX, the Swiss stock exchange, lists several Solana ETPs, some of which pass on staking rewards.
This page covers where to buy SOL with Swiss francs, what it costs, how staking works here, what the exchange-traded alternatives look like – and why Solana has a reputation for occasionally grinding to a halt.
Solana in brief: the network and the SOL token
Solana is a blockchain for payments and applications, similar to Ethereum but built for very high throughput. Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal founded it in 2018 through Solana Labs. Mainnet launched as a “beta” in March 2020, with the first block on 16 March 2020. The Solana Foundation, which funds the ecosystem, is a non-profit based in Zug – a piece of Crypto Valley few people know about.
Two mechanisms work together. Consensus method in which validators lock up coins for the right to confirm blocks, instead of spending computing power as Bitcoin miners do. decides who confirms blocks. Solana’s built-in chain of timestamps, which proves the order of transactions without every validator constantly having to coordinate. works like a cryptographic clock that records the order in which transactions arrived. The result is a block roughly every 400 milliseconds. The base fee is 0.000005 SOL per signature – less than a tenth of a Swiss centime at the end-2025 tax rate – plus an optional priority fee when the network is busy.
SOL pays transaction fees and is staked by validators and delegators. There is no fixed cap as with bitcoin: new SOL is issued through annual inflation that falls step by step and is designed to settle at 1.5% in the long run.
Outages: the known weak spot
According to the official status page and Wikipedia’s timeline, Solana had six extended outages between 2021 and 2024, each ended by a coordinated validator restart.
- Sept 2021
About 17 hours down after a flood of transactions knocked validators out of sync.
- May 2022
Roughly 7 hours offline, caused by bots swamping the network with transactions.
- June 2022
About 4.5 hours of downtime due to a bug in processing so-called offline transactions.
- Oct 2022
About 6 hours down: a misconfigured node had published conflicting blocks.
- Feb 2023
Around 20 hours in degraded mode with no economic activity, until a coordinated restart.
- Feb 2024
About 5 hours offline, fixed by restarting on a new software version.
Since February 2024 the status page has listed no comparable incident. An outage does not wipe out your coins – the network resumes from the last confirmed state. But nothing moves on-chain while it lasts, and exchanges typically pause SOL deposits and withdrawals, which is awkward if you want to move coins during a price slump.
Where to buy Solana in Switzerland
The choice is wider than for most altcoins:
| CEX.IO | Swissquote | PostFinance | LUKB | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your counterparty | CEX OVRS LLC, Nevis | Bank, FINMA | Bank, FINMA | Cantonal bank, FINMA |
| Trading fee | 0.15% / 0.25% | from 1.00% | 0.95% | 1.80% up to CHF 10,000 |
| SOL staking | CH on Earn list | ETH only | not mentioned | |
| Withdraw to own wallet | not confirmed | |||
| Swiss francs |
CEX.IO has operated since 2013, and group entities are registered in the US (FinCEN) and the UK (FCA). Swiss residents, however, contract with CEX OVRS LLC in Nevis, which names no regulator. CEX.IO has no FINMA licence and no Swiss self-regulatory membership, and francs are not offered as an account currency. SOL trades against US dollars, with spot fees from 0.15% (maker) and 0.25% (taker). Switzerland appears on the country list for its Earn product with staking, although CEX.IO’s own pages are inconsistent on this. More in our CEX.IO review.
Swissquote, the Gland-based bank, offers around 55 cryptocurrencies including SOL. Fees start at 1.00% and fall with 30-day volume. Withdrawing SOL to an external wallet costs USD 10, and custody costs CHF 20–50 a quarter for the whole account (Swissquote review).
PostFinance sells SOL among its 22 coins directly in e-finance, from USD 50 and as a savings plan, with a 0.15% annual portfolio fee. You need Swiss tax residence plus a Swiss ID, a passport or a B, C or C1 permit – fine for most expats with a residence permit. The official documents do not say whether you can move SOL to a wallet of your own (PostFinance crypto).
Lucerne Cantonal Bank (LUKB): SOL is one of nine coins, held on the bank’s own custody infrastructure. Withdrawals to external wallets start at CHF 1,000 and cost CHF 80 each; custody is 0.60% a year. The service is not available to US persons, which matters for American expats.
Other routes: Kraken takes francs free of charge by SIC transfer via Bank Frick and charges 0.40% maker or 0.80% taker at the entry tier of Kraken Pro; Swiss residents contract with a British Virgin Islands company (Kraken review). SwissBorg lists SOL with a 0.99% exchange fee; francs can only be sent by SWIFT to its French entity BlockNodes SAS, and card top-ups cost Swiss residents 4.5% (SwissBorg review). BancaStato has offered SOL in its e-banking since July 2026, via Sygnum. Mt Pelerin and the bitcoin-only Relai do not offer SOL.
Swiss providers must verify your identity once you reach CHF 1,000 within 30 days; our guide to FINMA crypto regulation explains why.
How to buy SOL, step by step
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Pick a provider
A bank if you want SOL next to your securities; an exchange if you want more coins or withdrawals to your own wallet.
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Open and verify your account
ID document, selfie and a Swiss address. Have your residence permit ready.
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Fund it with francs
A bank transfer is the cheapest route; credit cards cost several per cent extra at many providers.
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Buy SOL
A limit order caps your price and stops a wide spread from quietly inflating what you pay.
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Move it to your wallet
Copy your SOL address, send a small test amount first, then the rest. Check the withdrawal fee beforehand.
In instant-buy apps the The gap between the buy and sell price. It is a hidden cost that often comes on top of the advertised commission. is often a bigger cost than the advertised fee, so compare the quoted price with the rate on a large exchange before you confirm.
Want to buy SOL and hold it yourself? An exchange account with withdrawals to your own wallet is the most direct route.
Operating since 2013Group registered with FinCEN (US) and the FCA (UK)
Solana wallets: Phantom, Solflare and hardware
To hold SOL yourself you need a wallet that supports the Solana network. The most widely used are Phantom and Solflare, both You keep your crypto in your own wallet and control the private keys, rather than leaving them with a bank or exchange. apps and browser extensions: your coins sit at an address whose recovery phrase only you know.
For larger amounts, add a hardware wallet. Ledger devices support SOL; Trezor supports it on some models. The device signs, while Phantom or Solflare act as the interface. Our crypto wallet guide compares the devices.
Staking Solana in Switzerland
With Locking coins in the network to help confirm transactions, in exchange for rewards paid in the same cryptocurrency., you delegate SOL to a validator and receive a share of the rewards. On Solana your coins stay in your wallet. Activation and deactivation happen at the end of an epoch, which lasts roughly two days; there is no longer lock-up. Validators keep a commission that varies.
Swissquote stakes SOL inside your account and keeps 20% of the rewards. Bitcoin Suisse in Zug offers SOL staking to its clients, without a public price list. You can delegate yourself through Phantom or Solflare. And the ASOL ETP on SIX stakes the SOL it holds and adds the yield to the product’s value every day. PostFinance stakes ether only.
For tax, rewards are income at their franc value when received – on Solana that means roughly 180 small credits a year, so keep a clean export. Details in our guide to crypto staking in Switzerland.
Solana on the stock exchange: ASOL on SIX and US ETFs
Without a wallet, you can hold Solana like a share in your securities account. In Switzerland these products are called Exchange-traded product: a listed security that tracks the price of a cryptocurrency and is usually backed by actual coins., not ETFs.
The 21Shares Solana Staking ETP (ticker ASOL, ISIN CH1114873776) has been listed since 29 June 2021. According to the issuer, it is fully backed by SOL held in cold storage with BitGo and Coinbase Custody, and staking yield accrues daily to the net asset value. CoinShares’ SLNC is another Solana staking product on SIX. Which crypto ETPs are traded most is shown in SIX’s monthly crypto products report.
Do the maths: 2.50% a year on CHF 10,000 is CHF 250 annually. Held directly at PostFinance, the same CHF 10,000 costs CHF 15 a year in portfolio fees; at LUKB, CHF 60. The ETP’s staking yield offsets part of the gap.
In the US, the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) started trading on the NYSE on 28 October 2025 with a 0.20% fee. Whether your Swiss broker lets private clients buy US products like BSOL depends on the broker. The full picture is in our guide to crypto ETPs in Switzerland.
SOL on your Swiss tax return
The usual Swiss rules apply. SOL goes in your securities list and is subject to cantonal Annual cantonal tax on your net assets on 31 December – cryptocurrencies count.. The value to use is the Federal Tax Administration’s price list: CHF 99.19 per SOL on 31 December 2025. If you held 40 SOL at the end of 2025, you declare CHF 3,967.
Capital gains on private assets are tax-free and losses are not deductible; staking rewards are income. If you moved to Switzerland during the year, your first Swiss return still uses the 31 December value. Our guides on crypto tax in Switzerland and declaring crypto on your tax return explain the forms.
Risks at a glance
- Outages: six extended halts between 2021 and 2024 during which no transactions went through.
- Volatility: after the FTX collapse, SOL fell about 40% in a single day in November 2022; FTX held around USD 982 million of SOL.
- No supply cap: inflation falls every year, but new SOL keeps being issued.
- Bank custody ties you in: PostFinance does not document transfers to your own wallet.
- Scams: fake tokens, airdrops and signature traps.
- ETP costs: 2.50% a year for ASOL.
This page is not investment advice: Solana is a speculative asset and you could lose everything you put in. To compare options, see our overview of the top cryptocurrencies in Switzerland or our page on XRP.
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