March 3rd: Over the past four years, Tether has partnered with Lugano’s municipal government to get more than 400 local merchants on board to accept BTC and USDT payments via Plan ₿. This effort has embedded digital assets into daily business transactions and boosted their real-world utility. With strategic and technical support from Tether, Lugano has also launched digital bond issuances and enabled municipal digital asset payments — integrating blockchain directly into public fiscal infrastructure, not just limiting it to the private sector. Tether and Lugano’s government have jointly committed 5 million Swiss Francs to advance Plan ₿ Phase II, positioning Lugano as a global digital infrastructure hub. From 2026 to 2030, Tether will provide infrastructure support to grant Lugano long-term digital sovereignty. Key measures include: – Building secure, automated digital asset management infrastructure – Developing Lugano into a hub for digital trade and commodity flows – Advancing sovereign, privacy-preserving digital identity systems – Fostering the local AI ecosystem and autonomous digital agents – Implementing distributed, modular, and resilient urban digital infrastructure to support the next generation of DeFi activities.
