Tether and Lugano Collaborate to Advance Digital Infrastructure

On March 3, Tether announced its collaboration with the Lugano city government to promote the integration of digital assets into everyday commerce. According to BlockBeats, over the past four years, this partnership has enabled more than 400 local merchants to accept BTC and USDT payments, embedding digital assets into daily business transactions and facilitating real-world payments. With strategic and technical support from Tether, Lugano has also introduced digital bond issuance and supports municipal digital asset payments, integrating blockchain directly into public financial infrastructure beyond private sector use. Tether and Lugano have jointly committed to investing 5 million Swiss francs to advance the second phase of Plan ₿, aiming to position Lugano as a global digital infrastructure hub. Between 2026 and 2030, Tether will provide infrastructure support to empower Lugano with long-term digital sovereignty. Initiatives include building secure digital asset automated management infrastructure, developing Lugano into a hub for digital trade and commodity flows, advancing digital identity systems that protect sovereignty and privacy, fostering a local AI ecosystem and autonomous digital agents, and implementing distributed, modular, and resilient urban digital infrastructure to support next-generation DeFi activities.