The announcement was made this afternoon at Lugano’s Plan B event.Read MoreFeedzy
Aiming to become Europe’s Bitcoin capital, Lugano, Switzerland, has formed a partnership with stablecoin issuer Tether to establish bitcoin, Tether and Lugano’s own LVGA Points token as essentially legal tender in the city.
The move goes far beyond the actions of a number of other Swiss localities that for some time have been accepting crypto for tax payments. Somewhat similar to El Salvador, Lugano – in addition to allowing crypto for taxes – is aiming to have all of its businesses seamlessly use crypto for everyday transactions (in El Salvador, only bitcoin qualifies).
At Thursday’s “Plan B” event, which was hosted by Lugano’s mayor, Michele Foletti, the move was described as a “de facto” legalization, as the Swiss franc will surely remain the actual legal tender in Lugano and elsewhere in Switzerland.
Also announced at Plan B were plans for the Bitcoin World Forum to be held in Lugano on Oct. 26-28.
Switzerland’s ninth-largest city with a population just over 62,000, Lugano is in the Italian-speaking southern part of the country.
UPDATE (March 3, 18:20 UTC): Added additional details of the event in third graph.
DISCLOSURE
The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights, which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG.
Crypto traders are buying bitcoin (BTC) on Kraken, one of the 10 biggest cryptocurrency exchanges,…
Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $89,000 during Tuesday's early European hours as Nasdaq futures pointed to…
Crypto bulls nursed at least $1.2 billion in losses over the past 24 hours as…
U.S. spot-listed bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) experienced the second-biggest outflows of the year on…
The Bitcoin price has fallen more than -8.8% since Friday when Bybit suffered the biggest…
Bitcoin (BTC) has dropped below $95,000 and risks a further decline amid the ongoing market…