Friday, October 24, 2025. The fall sky is completely clear. The intense rain the night before lowered the temperatures, and although the sun’s rays have no clouds to stop it, the air rests cold on the bodies of a long and growing line of people who want to enter the Lugano Congress Palace. This is the first thing they see while waiting:
It is no small feat that this mural is in front of the Congress Palace. Even more relevant is that a Bitcoin conference was held on the premises of a government building.
Lugano is a small city. 67 thousand inhabitants in 75.86 km² of surface, and the Congress Palace is located in the center of the city, right in front of Lake Lugano and within one of the largest and busiest parks in the city. I think I don’t run the risk of exaggerating by saying that all of Lugano found out that there was a Bitcoin conference happening there.
In my time covering Bitcoin conferences I have had the opportunity to attend events in Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, Spain, France, Czech Republic, Latvia, among others. The size of the venues has varied depending on the financing of the event, but what has been a constant is that the space dedicated to Bitcoin was restricted to the establishment. In the case of the Plan B Forum, Bitcoin was overflowing through the city.
This is the difference it makes when local government is involved in an event. Because when the conferences were held Adopting Bitcoin and Labitconf 2021, Although the government relaxed its health requirements in the face of Covid-19 to facilitate the entry of Bitcoiners into the country, the presence of Bitcoin in San Salvador was limited to the physical space of the events. No one beyond that point in the city knew that there were international references talking about Bitcoin at that time.
But In Lugano everyone knew about Plan B Forum. And everyone knows about the event every year since it began taking place in 2023.
Beyond the conference, which, by the way, brings together the biggest Bitcoin exponents in the world, the small city of Lugano is becoming a huge center of Bitcoin initiatives.
In CriptoNoticias conversations with Pietro Poretti, the head of economic development of Lugano told us that, since they began the Plan B initiative “the most revolutionary message they sent was what we call de facto legal course.”
Although Bitcoin does not have official legal tender in Lugano because that would have implied legislative amendments, it was equated to the Swiss franc for payments of taxes, fines, public services, goods in shops, but even housing rentals.
The plan included the creation of a local token called LVGA, pegged to the Swiss franc, an investment of 100 million Swiss francs (about $114 million) from Tether and partners to foster blockchain startups, education and sustainable mining.
It also included the integration of payments with bitcoin (including the Lightning Network), USDT and LVGA in more than 200 initial businesses, such as McDonald’s. Today we can see that even Western Union exchanges bitcoin and has BTC ATMs in its stores.
Poretti recognizes that in Lugano not all residents pay with bitcoin all the time. The Swiss franc is a strong currency, so locals have no need for BTC like in countries like Venezuela. He says that during Plan B editions payments tend to grow, but it is a temporary phenomenon.
We asked some stores if they accepted bitcoin and the answer was usually “not yet,” even though the government distributed points of sale. But he compliance can be a hindrance.
We have a small team of people who do a kind of marketing activity, which means they interact with interested business owners, restaurants, stores, service providers all over the city. They explain to them what it means to receive cryptocurrencies. But there’s also quite a bit of paperwork involved because we have to get them to sign contracts. As a municipality, since we have set up the entire system, and that enables payments in crypto, we are also subject to quite strict anti-money laundering regulations. And that means that we have a very precise back office activity. We track everything, we need to have information on all users, as well as on the merchant side, because we are also subject to audits.”
Pietro Poretti, head of economic development of Lugano
However, for years the predominant narrative in Bitcoin is not that it is a means of payment, but rather a store of value. Therefore, at this time of adoption, perhaps the volume of payments with bitcoin is not so important. The education and awareness about Bitcoin that the initiative has created can be much more significant.
Places like coworking space PoWSpace, the sponsorship of the FC Lugano football team, and the Plan B Network diffusion network, are initiatives that make Bitcoin settle in the unconscious of the Swiss.
Bitcoin adoption has put Lugano on the mapin the words of Poretti. And this has attracted the interest of other Swiss governors.
I would say there are, I think, today probably half a dozen other cities, some very well-known, including some major tourist destinations, that have reached out, mainly offering the ability to pay taxes in some digital currencies. But they didn’t go much further than that. I have to admit that, as a public administration, it is not easy.
Pietro Poretti, head of economic development of Lugano
Outside of Switzerland, there has also been marked interest from other world leaders, explains Poretti:
Monthly, we have at least one video call with a region or a government. Today here at Plan B Forum 25 in Lugano, during the opening, representatives from a couple of Swiss cities came here specifically to learn a little more about what we are doing. We had representatives from a city in Kazakhstan, from a municipality in California near Los Angeles, from a city in Vietnam that has been approached on numerous occasions already, very interested in understanding to what extent what we are doing here could be translated or transferred directly to their context.
Pietro Poretti, head of economic development of Lugano
Taking the risk of adopting Bitcoin has turned Lugano into a reference. And although there have been detractors of the government initiative, such as those who vandalized the Satoshi statue located in the most important park in Lugano, in front of the Congress Palace, its restoration is an example of Bitcoin’s resilience.
And that Mayor Michele Foletti has been re-elected in 2024, gives confidence that the project will be sustained over time. For Poretti, the benefits of adoption are palpable.
Bitcoin put Lugano on the map and Lugano put Bitcoin on everyone’s radar. Probably the greatest proof of this was the drone show at the end of the Plan B Forum, where it was shared from the sky, visible to the entire city, the message of the importance of Bitcoin through memes.
