Switzerland Launches First Government Blockchain Project on Hedera in Muri bei Bern.

A Swiss municipality has launched what its partners describe as the first operational government blockchain project in the country. Muri bei Bern, a town in the canton of Bern, has begun issuing on-chain digital vouchers to residents who complete biodiversity conservation work, using the Hedera network as the underlying ledger.

The deployment digitizes a paper-voucher program that the municipality has run for several years to encourage local conservation activity. Until now, the rewards system relied on physical vouchers handed out to volunteers and exchanged at participating businesses. With the new system, the same incentive structure is preserved while the record-keeping moves on-chain, allowing the municipality to maintain a verifiable record tied directly to completed environmental work.

Residents who carry out approved tasks — such as restoring meadows or removing invasive species — receive a digital voucher worth one Swiss franc, issued on-site at the time the activity is completed. The vouchers can subsequently be redeemed at participating local businesses and service providers within the municipality. Each transaction is recorded on Hedera's distributed ledger, producing an audit trail that links environmental contribution to voucher issuance and redemption.

The project, known as BIDI, was developed by Apps with Love, a digital transformation firm responsible for product design and integrations. The financial layer is provided by Swisscoast through HCHF, a Swiss franc stablecoin built on the Hedera network. The Hashgraph Group participated in the project as ecosystem partner, supporting the integration with the underlying distributed ledger.

According to the municipality and the project partners, BIDI represents the first operational municipal blockchain project currently live in Switzerland. Supporters argue that the approach improves transparency while reducing administrative overhead for local governments seeking to document the impact of citizen-led conservation activity. The use of an on-chain Swiss franc stablecoin, rather than a volatile crypto-asset, keeps the value of each voucher pegged to local currency and removes the need for residents to interact with price-fluctuating tokens.

The deployment is being positioned by its partners as a reference case that other Swiss municipalities could draw on as they consider similar approaches to verifiable environmental incentives.