The launch of 3 March 2022 and the memorandum of understanding

The announcement

The announcement of 3 March 2022 was staged as an international event. Foletti and Ardoino presented a programme whose elements were set out in the first reports: a fund of CHF 100 million to be made available for attracting blockchain companies to Lugano, a further CHF 3 million to help local businesses integrate payments in Kryptowerte und Digital Assets, the acceptance of bitcoin, USDT and a city token for taxes, parking fines, sewage fees, cemetery charges, passport fees, cultural services and market stall fees, a reward scheme in tokens, and grants for some 500 students.¹ The figure of CHF 100 million attracted most attention, but it was never a commitment of public money. It described the volume of investment that Tether and its partners were expected to make available to companies relocating to the city. The municipality's own financial contribution was small, as the answer to a council inquiry later showed.

Foletti set the tone with a sentence that was quoted widely: "Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain are terms that frighten many people, but Lugano is not intimidated."² Ardoino explained why Tether had chosen a mid-sized Swiss city. In his view the world would see five or six hubs for the technology, and Lugano combined a Swiss legal order, a financial tradition and proximity to Milan. Both men emphasized that the city would not hold Kryptowerte und Digital Assets on its balance sheet. Every payment was to be converted into Swiss francs by an intermediary, so that the municipal treasury would carry no exchange-rate risk.³ This assurance answered the most obvious objection under municipal finance law and recurs in every later description of the programme.

The timing was unusual. The announcement came eight days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and four months after bitcoin had reached its then record price in November 2021. In the following months the market fell sharply. The collapse of the FTX exchange in November 2022 brought the price of bitcoin down to less than a quarter of its peak.⁴ Plan ₿ was therefore launched near the top of one cycle and spent its first year in a downturn that discredited much of the sector. The fact that the city maintained the programme through that period is part of what its supporters, in 2026, presented as a vindication.

What the 2022 memorandum contained

The agreement of March 2022 was a protocollo d'intesa, a memorandum of understanding between the City of Lugano, acting through its executive (Municipio), and Tether. Its content became known to the wider public mainly through the city's answer of March 2023 to an inquiry (interpellanza) by five Socialist members of the city council, led by Raoul Ghisletta.⁵ According to that answer, the purpose of the protocol was to strengthen Lugano's position as a Swiss and European hub for digital innovation with particular attention to blockchain technology. The cooperation covered the payment of city invoices in Kryptowerte und Digital Assets, the development of the city token, an annual forum in October and international events.⁶

The financial side was described in the same answer. The city had spent about CHF 30,000 on promotional content and about CHF 5,000 for the participation of two representatives at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2022. Tether had borne most of the remaining costs of the project.⁷ The answer also acknowledged the criticism of the sector, citing among other things a letter of some 1,500 experts to the United States Congress that took an "extremely critical" position on Kryptowerte und Digital Assets, together with the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing. The Municipio concluded that the programme had produced worldwide media coverage and an effect on the city's image beyond its expectations.

The memorandum of 2026 describes itself as the "evolution, completion and extension" of the agreement of March 2022 and states that the earlier agreement remains in effect.⁸ The renewal thus confirms that the original protocol had no fixed term that expired in 2026 or that the parties chose to treat it as continuing. Its legal nature can be inferred from the structure of the second memorandum, which expressly declares itself non-binding except for its provisions on confidentiality and intellectual property and states that it entails no financial obligations for the city without separate implementing agreements.⁹ Nothing in the reporting on the 2022 protocol suggests that it differed in this respect.

Notes

1. Allen, "Death, taxes and crypto" (above). ↩
2. Ibid. ↩
3. Ibid. (conversion into Swiss francs via intermediaries, no holding in the city's treasury). ↩
4. Wikipedia (used as a last resort), "Crypto winter", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_winter (bitcoin peak of about USD 67,567 on 7 November 2021); Wikipedia, "History of bitcoin", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bitcoin (two-year low of USD 16,216 on 28 November 2022 after the collapse of FTX). ↩
5. "Spiegato il protocollo d'intesa tra Lugano e Tether", laRegione, 31 March 2023, https://www.laregione.ch/cantone/luganese/1656953/servizi (inquiry by Raoul Ghisletta, Cappelletti, David, Petrini and Sargenti). ↩
6. Ibid. (purpose "rafforzare il posizionamento di Lugano quale hub svizzero ed europeo dell'innovazione digitale con particolare attenzione alla tecnologia blockchain"). ↩
7. Ibid. ↩
8. Memorandum of Understanding … Phase II (above), recitals. ↩
9. Ibid., final provisions. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.