BlockBeats report: On March 3, over the past four years, Tether has collaborated with the city of Lugano to promote the acceptance of BTC and USDT payments by more than 400 local merchants through Plan ₿, integrating digital assets into everyday commerce and advancing real-world payments. With Tether’s strategic and technical support, Lugano has also introduced digital bond issuance and enabled partial municipal digital asset payments, directly embedding blockchain technology into public financial infrastructure—not limited to private sector use.
Tether and the City of Lugano have jointly committed to investing 5 million Swiss francs to advance Phase Two of Plan ₿, positioning Lugano as a global hub for digital infrastructure. From 2026 to 2030, Tether will provide infrastructure support to grant Lugano long-term digital sovereignty. Initiatives include building secure, automated infrastructure for digital asset management; establishing Lugano as a hub for digital trade and commodity flows; advancing sovereign and privacy-preserving digital identity systems; fostering a local AI ecosystem and autonomous digital agents; and implementing a distributed, modular, and resilient urban digital infrastructure to support the next generation of DeFi activities.