Few people who acquire bitcoins think about using them to buy actual things in stores. Cryptocurrency is rather viewed as an investment. But in Lugano, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, the situation is different.
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While you can still pay for everything in Swiss francs, around 350 shops and restaurants now also accept bitcoin. Local authorities have even started accepting cryptocurrency payments for municipal services. For example, you can pay for childcare in kindergarten in bitcoins.
The BBC spoke to Nicolas, who is from France, in Lugano. He can be called a true Bitcoin supporter.
Nicolas says he discovered bitcoin cards in Switzerland. These are prepaid gift cards. You buy a certain amount in Swiss francs, but download it in bitcoin to a digital wallet on your phone.
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“Using Bitcoin will be like a tree growing”
At Vintage Nassa, which sells new and used bags and watches, the owner of Cherubino Fry tells me he accepts bitcoin because the transaction processing fee is lower than what credit card companies charge.
In the case of bitcoin, it is usually below 1 percent, while in the case of debit cards it can be as high as 1.7 percent and in the case of credit cards as much as 3.4 percent.
“Using bitcoin will be like a tree growing, and that tree will grow very big in five, ten years,” Fry.
See also: El Zonte – beach, surfing and bitcoin. This is a small town that is changing the world's finances
Bitcoin in El Salvador
In 2021, El Salvador established bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the US dollar. To encourage its use, the government gave people the equivalent of $30 in bitcoin, which they downloaded through the app.
“So people just downloaded the app, exchanged their bitcoins for dollars and never used it again,” Vincent Charles, head of cryptocurrency firm Unchain Data, tells the BBC.
Earlier this year, he traveled to El Salvador to check out the bitcoin adoption process and concluded that people weren't really using it and that retailers and service providers were rarely accepting it.
However, there are other examples of successful bitcoin adoption from around the world. Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana, was named the world's most cryptocurrency-friendly city in an April report, followed by Hong Kong and Zurich.
Source: BBC
