Polygon and Tether stablecoin are backing the City of Lugano in its effort to transform this picturesque lakeside town in southern Switzerland into Europe’s blockchain capital.

Lugano will allow citizens and companies to use Bitcoin, Tether and the city’s own LVGA stablecoin to pay their annual taxes, parking tickets, public services and student tuition fees, paving the way for cryptocurrencies becoming a legal tender in the city. Polygon is joining the effort as an infrastructure partner, offering the rails on which the stablecoins will run.

Under Lugano Plan B, the city will also create a specialized hub hosting companies and start-ups and set up a 100 million Swiss francs ($109 million) fund to help finance blockchain based startups and set aside another 3 million Swiss francs to speed adoption by local businesses. Tether’s Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino and Lugano’s Mayor Michele Foletti made the announcement via a livestream.

Over the past year, Lugano has already taken concrete steps toward making their plan a reality. The city launched a digital wallet and a loyalty program based on LVGA points.  Lugano also developed 3Achain, an EVM-compatible city blockchain that uses a Proof of Authority consensus and is linked to Ethereum.

Polygon is one the fastest growing blockchains, offering high speed and low gas infrastructure. It has attracted more than 7,000 decentralized apps, from DeFi bluechips Sushiswap and Aave to NFT marketplaces OpenSea and Mark Cuban’s Lazy.com. The core team is building a full suite of scaling solutions including Polygon PoS, Polygon Edge and Polygon Avail, and is investing in cutting-edge zero knowledge technology that will be key to onboarding the next billion users to Ethereum.

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