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Stephen Alpher
Stephen Alpher is CoinDesk's co-regional news chief, Americas. He holds BTC and ETH above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.
LUGANO, SWITZERLAND – Appearing at the opening panel of Lugano’s Plan B Forum alongside the city’s Mayor Michelle Foletti, Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino says bitcoin adoption there is “working well.”
Seven months after the two teamed up to bring widespread use of bitcoin to the city, Ardoino says 40 merchants are already using the crypto with point-of-sale systems. While that may not seem like too overwhelming of a figure, Ardoino said the aim all along was to bring along adoption in a “scientific way.”
It’s one thing – as many politicians have done – for an official to say he or she is pro-bitcoin, noted Ardoino. But it’s a different project altogether to put a plan behind those words.
To that end, said Ardoino, rather than trying to go to quick mass use, it was more important that things worked properly and smoothly for the initial adopters. He’s now expecting 1,000 Lugano merchants to have bitcoin point-of-sale in their businesses in the first quarter of 2023.
Ardoino and Foletti reminded that in addition to adoption, there were two other prongs to Lugano’s Plan B – education and this week’s forum. On the education front, there was the successful launch last July of the well-attended Plan B Summer School at Lugano’s Franklin University. As for the Plan B Forum – taking place at what may or may not be the depths of the bitcoin bear market – it appeared to be well- and enthusiastically attended, with Foletti and Ardoino saying they fully expect it to be an annual event.
