Out of Pilot · Nov 12, 2026
From a PhD Thesis to $70M in Collateral: The Swiss Franc Stablecoin Story
Johannes Kern on the Swiss franc stablecoin
The Swiss franc,
on-chain.
Digital Swiss francs, ZCHF. Save, borrow and pay with a decentralized currency backed by collateral you can see.
- Savings rate
- 3.50%
- In circulation
- 32.5M
- Collateral per ZCHF
- 1.48×
- Live since
- 2023
One franc. Four ways to use it.
Save 3.50%per year Earn 3.50% on Swiss francs Deposit ZCHF in the savings module. Interest accrues every block, withdraw any time. Start saving →
Invest 20.9% Protocol return on equity. Since launch, compound annual rate Own a share of the system FCS, Frankencoin Shares, is the protocol's equity: a share of the reserve and a vote on how it is run. Its value can rise or fall. Explore FCS →
Borrow Francs against BTC, ETH, gold or shares Keep your exposure and mint ZCHF at fixed terms. No credit check. up to 96% loan-to-value from 1.11% a year See live terms → Pay Spend it like francs At Spar stores, with an ether.fi card, or by bank transfer through a personal IBAN. See where → Your dollars are melting.
Francs are not.
Take $10,000 in the year 2000 and leave it alone. Here is what it is worth today, in today’s dollars, and what it still buys.
Kept as cash dollars
No interest. The note just sits there.
Today
buying power
US Treasury bills
The classic “safe” dollar: 3-month T-bills, interest reinvested every quarter.
Today
buying power
Swiss franc savings
Today
buying power
Annual averages from FRED (Federal Reserve H.10 exchange rates, 3-month Treasury bill TB3MS, BLS CPI-U), the Swiss National Bank (overnight call money to 1998, SARON from 1999) and the OECD Swiss CPI; today's rate from ECB reference rates. T-bill returns ignore taxes and fees. Past moves do not predict future ones. Nothing here is investment advice.
Backed by collateral
you can see.
Borrowers lock assets in public contracts to mint ZCHF, so every franc is backed by more than a franc of collateral. Weak positions are challenged and auctioned, and borrowers' interest pays savers first.
+7 Backed by 17 collateral types, every one on-chain
ZCHF in circulation
32.5M
Collateral value (CHF)
48.2M
Collateral per ZCHF
1.48×
Protocol equity
3.6M
Pick your path.
Grow Swiss francs
Earn the protocol rate on ZCHF from a bank account or a crypto wallet. Withdraw any time.
For savers
Hold reserves in CHF
Companies, funds and DAOs: diversify out of USD and earn on idle reserves.
For treasuries List and earn
Offer a Swiss-franc balance with yield and earn a share of your users' interest.
For exchanges & wallets Build with ZCHF
Verified contracts, REST API, indexer, MCP server and grants.
For developers What people write about Frankencoin.
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Johannes Kern explains how Frankencoin's decentralized, over-collateralized Swiss-franc stablecoin works, including its oracle-free auction-based liquidation model and path to payments, savings and self-custody.
Would you like to report about Frankencoin? Get in touch using media@frankencoin.com
Short answers.
Frankencoin (ZCHF) is a decentralized stablecoin that tracks the Swiss franc. It is not issued by a company: anyone can mint it against collateral worth more than the ZCHF they create, and the collateral stays visible on-chain. See What is Frankencoin.
A digital token designed to hold a stable value against a reference currency. For ZCHF the reference is the Swiss franc; each ZCHF is backed by collateral worth more than one franc.
A bank balance is a claim on one bank. ZCHF is a token you hold in your own wallet, backed by collateral anyone can inspect on-chain, and no institution can freeze it. It is not a deposit and is not covered by deposit insurance.
USDT and USDC are issued by companies against reserves they hold, and the issuer can freeze balances. ZCHF is issued by smart contracts against on-chain collateral, tracks the franc rather than the dollar, and has no issuer who can freeze it. See the comparison.
No. The franc is the reference currency, not the backing. Each ZCHF is backed by collateral (BTC, ETH, tokenized gold or shares) worth more than one franc. See How it works.
Swiss francs. On-chain. Yours.
Start with any amount. No account with Frankencoin, no lock-up, your own keys.