Tag: Swiss

McDonald’s in Swiss’s Town Accepts Crypto Payments in BTC & USDT

by Blockchain News

Multinational fast food chain giant McDonald’s now accepts Bitcoin and USDT as payment methods in the southern Swiss city of Lugano (Lugano).

Residents of the city of Lugano can order food using a McDonald’s digital kiosk and then pay at the regular check-in desk with the help of a mobile app.

Apart from crypto payments, this region also supports cryptocurrency payments for taxes, parking tickets, public services, and student tuition in the local community.

The City of Lugano intends to allow residents to settle their annual tax bills and pay for goods and services in cryptocurrencies, with only Bitcoin, USDT and a certain Swiss franc-pegged Stablecoin for payments.

Lugano, a city of 63,000 in Italian-speaking Switzerland, announced in March that it would be one of the first cities in the world to introduce a full cryptocurrency payments economy. More than 200 stores and businesses are expected to accept crypto payments for goods and services.

The City of Lugano has announced the acceptance of Bitcoin, Tether and LVGA tokens as legal tender.

To that end, Tether and Lugano will collaborate to make the city a major hub for blockchain adoption across Europe.

Likewise, McDonald’s has begun accepting Bitcoin as a payment option in El Salvador after the nation became the first to adopt the cryptocurrency as legal tender on September 7 in 2021.

McDonald’s customers in El Salvador can now pay for Big Macs and other items on the menu with bitcoin at all 19 McDonald’s locations in the country, as well as online and through delivery apps.

Image source: Shutterstock

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Bitcoin Surpasses Swiss Franc To Become World’s 13th Largest Currency

by Bitcoin Magazine

At the time of writing, Bitcoin has surpassed the Swiss Franc (CHF) in market capitalization as the world’s thirteenth largest currency, according to data from Fiatmarketcap.com. There are only 12 world currencies left for Bitcoin to overcome.

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Fiatmarketcap.com takes a Bitcoin standard approach to analyze currencies. It measures the world’s biggest currencies in terms of market capitalization as priced in BTC, the best form of money ever created but still lagging in perception.

The website also uses BTC as a measuring stick for countries’ gross domestic product (GDP), which puts Bitcoin at eighteenth place.

As the world starts recognizing the superiority of BTC in nearly all aspects of a good money, namely durability, portability, verifiability, divisibility, and scarcity. As time progresses and bitcoin adoption increases, it is set to have a more well-established history of success, which confers upon it a greater appeal for usage.

By thinking in bitcoin terms right away, people can realign the incentives governing their economic decisions. As monetary supply increases indefinitely, inflation follows suit and so do prices, leading to a distorted view of the economic reality based on the feedback given by free market prices.

A Bitcoin standard has the potential to restore the confidence of market participants in the overall prices being used in the economy. Since one BTC cannot be debased through loose monetary policies governed by corruptible human beings, its assurances of retaining purchasing power allow for a realignment of economic incentives.

In the fiat system based on debt, people are discouraged from saving and encouraged to take on debt, never deferring the option to spend now for later. In a Bitcoin economy, people would not be rushed to spend their money since they would have the assurance that their purchasing power would be preserved over the long term.

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Swiss Bitcoin Startup Relai Builds Proprietary Broker

by Bitcoin Magazine

The investment app has become a regulated Virtual Asset Service Provider, allowing it to provide BTC brokerage services in Europe.

Bitcoin investing app Relai has become a regulated Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) in Switzerland, allowing it to provide bitcoin brokerage services to customers in the country and Europe, according to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. The startup, now a partner of the Financial Services Standard Association (VQF), will be able to provide more efficient order processing and cease reliance on third-party exchanges.

“We are excited to be one of the few Swiss bitcoin startups who are members of VQF, allowing us to build Europe’s leading bitcoin brokerage platform,” said Julian Liniger, co-founder and CEO at Relai. “With our own broker, we will be able to set competitive fees, increase order efficiency, and build new products and services for our users.”

Relai acquired the VQF membership to build an in-house brokerage platform, no longer needing to outsource trade execution. Now, the firm will be able to provide customers with the direct exchange of euros and Swiss francs for bitcoin and vice versa, ceasing reliance on third-party businesses.

The Swiss startup provides customers in Europe with instant access to bitcoin purchasing and selling services without creating an account or submitting personal information. Relai doesn’t require registration, and customers don’t have to endure verification processes or extensive document requirements.

Under the previous model, however, Relai customers were limited to purchasing approximately $1,100 per day and $110,000 per year. But since becoming a VASP in Switzerland, the company can now enable more significant purchases, which would require more personal information to be submitted by users.

The news comes to fulfill Relai’s plans first set out in June. That month, the company raised $2.7 million in a Series A round, which it said would fund projects to build a proprietary broker. Other objectives shared by the company include obtaining a financial intermediary license and providing new offerings for investors looking to buy large amounts of bitcoin.

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CoinShares Launches Ethereum-Backed ETP Worth $75 Million

by Cryptobriefing

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Swiss Crypto Laws Herald New Financial Era, Says Report

by Btcmanager

Switzerland’s financial landscape is set to witness a new era following the launch of the digital asset’s laws on February 1 2021. This is according to a financial report from top Swiss news platform swissinfo.ch in a report released today.

New Laws Place Spotlight on Crypto Industry

Switzerland passed the digital asset laws last year and is expected to be implemented in two phases. The first phase which pertains to company law reforms was launched on February 1 and will be followed by financial markets infrastructure regulations that will begin in August.

These laws are expected to herald the beginning of a fully regulated cryptocurrency and digital asset industry in Switzerland. The laws are comprehensive and cover extensive sectors within the crypto and digital asset sector.  Crypto service providers are able to know where they stand and the risk involved in offering such services within the Swiss jurisdiction. It is expected that the new regulations will offer new benefits to the markets and could potentially lead to the introduction of new crypto-related financial products.

A Major Rush for Crypto Licenses

As expected, the new digital laws have created a major rush in the Swiss markets as financial companies have moved towards getting relevant licenses. Crypto Finance Group revealed today that it had received a securities house license from Swiss financial regulator FINMA. The license enables the brokerage to offer new digital securities including shares and other tokenized assets and collectibles.


Swiss banks SEBA and Sygnum are also making major moves and are among the forerunners, having received FINMA licenses in 2019. Sygnum recently tokenized a range of premium wines from Fine Wine Capital on its Desygnate blockchain platform that was launched last year. The Bank has also struck agreements to issue digital assets within the real estate and automobile industry.

SEBA meanwhile has been involved in the tokenization of shares. The Bank raised CHF20 million from investors last December and tokenized the share certificates into digital shares that can be traded on crypto exchanges. Apart from these three firms, other financial entities like the Swiss Digital Exchange (SDX), Bitcoin Suisse, Taurus, and Lykke have also applied for various licenses with FINMA.  It will be interesting to see what effects the new laws have on the blockchain industry in the coming months.


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Swiss Stock Exchange SIX Lists New Bitcoin ETF

by Btcmanager

Swiss stock exchange SIX has revealed the listing of a new Bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) from financial firm ETC Group. This was announced on Wednesday, 13th of January in a press release by the stock exchange.

Physically backed ETP

According to the press release, the newly released product by ETC called BTCE tracks the price of Bitcoin and is 100% backed by the currency. This means that ETC group owns the underlining Bitcoin that it represents. Each unit of BTCE gives the holder a predefined amount of Bitcoin.

Investors will be able to gain access to the leading currency in a transparent and easy way.  The financial product can be bought and sold like any other stock listed on the SIX Swiss exchange.  The ETC Group is a firm that specializes in developing innovative digital asset-backed securities and has two London-based regulated brokers.

It was also revealed that BTCE will be marketed and distributed by HANetf, an independent provider of UCITS exchange-traded funds. The addition of BTCE to the Swiss exchange takes the number of ETP providers to six and ETP listed to 34.

The Swiss stock exchange is one of the worlds leading marketplaces for regulated crypto products and processed 1.1 billion CHF ($1.2 billion) worth of transactions in 2020. This is a record surpassing the last figure of 525 million CHF ($595 million) recorded in 2017.

Christine Reus head of markets at SIX Swiss exchanges believes that the addition of BTCE is a great one for the exchange. “With the new product, investors gain access to 100 different crypto products trading on our platform and with this have even more opportunities to diversify their portfolio,”

A major increase in Crypto exchange-traded funds (ETP)

There is a recent craze for crypto exchange-traded funds. These funds correspond to index funds whose units can be sold or bought directly on the stock exchange making it easier for traditional investors to access cryptocurrencies. The recent surge of Bitcoin has led to more institutions purchasing the coin in bulk.

However, the volatile nature and lack of regulation of Bitcoin have seen some investors pull back for the fear of running afoul regulations.  ETF is a safer form of investment for these investors since it is sold within a regulated environment.

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