Bitcoin Forum

The small town is already known for its fast growing fintech operations, even being called “Crypto Valley” by some, with 15 fintech-oriented companies being located there.  Apparently the town council has hopes Zug’s trend as a financial tech hub continues  — having embraced the new identity with this legislative move.

After this legislative move you can be certain Bitcoiners will be taking notice of this small town, and it already has the added benefit of being located in Switzerland  —  which is known for its business friendly environment and relatively small regulatory burden. Switzerland’s long history of regulatory stability and political neutrality has, in the past, made the country a hub for financial related business. So, it should be no surprise that the town that takes the radical step of accepting Bitcoin for utility payments would be located in the country.

Zug,Switzerland
http://s32.postimg.org/cvgwwpbdt/Untitled.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/cvgwwpbdt/)

Oh yes, the Swiss are very innovative people, especially when it comes to finance. One of the first BTC ATM was in Geneva, though, it didn't last. Note that payments are capped at 200 CHF (~180€). More info below in German.

http://www.itmagazine.ch/Artikel/62092/Zugerinnen_und_Zuger_koennen_kuenftig_Gebuehren_mit_Bitcoins_bezahlen.html

This is really great that they have gone ahead and allowed it to breathe. Hopefully it opens more Countries to following suit and we get a domino effect where the people demand change.

Good news. And it is always nice to hear about bitcoin acceptance progression. Promotion among 'normal' people is all bitcoin needs right now.
But that mean you can pay official taxes with Bitcoin and other utility fees like fines, tickets etc. there?

what kind of services?gas station?or other services?
its a good move for europan country like swiss to begin accept bitcoin in town,and its should following by other country,even not easy to teach services owner to accept bitcoin. but we can go ahead smoothly.

Good news, as long they accept bitcoin with any of services they offer. That is a good thing that bitcoin in now being recognized by many countries in the world. First, brazil 150+ stores and now swiss town.

The Swiss can do this because the country has a stable currency where Bitcoin is not a real challenger. In contrary to the Euro for example. The acceptance of Bitcoin could lead to loss of trust on the next Euro crisis. For that reason, I predict that we will not see such officially Bitcoin acceptance services in European countries outside Switzerland.

Switzerland is a pretty nice place, nice mountains, eco-friendly stuff, bitcoin, low taxes, and people are not that zombies.

I wish all of europe would adopt their style of living. They will be one of the early bitcoin countries after Netherlands.

Cool. Politics must know about this, so they can use it to wash and hide their money.

That way they won't be caught and people will think they're honest.

Its amazing a Country like this is moving in the right direction,here in Canada I have read two issues lately that make me shake my head. One is they want to put some women on the dollar bills and produce a new bill in honor of some famous lady they select. Problem being we will have to replace all our currency once the Queen kicks the bucket and I am guessing sooner than later.
Second issue is they then want to eliminate the lower end coins because its costing to much money to produce and it would save them money! Bitcoin says hello and is much cheaper to produce. ;D

Imagine we are not the only Country going through retarded money issues like this and thinking about bitcoin being used in the manner the Swiss are using it just pisses me off so much that we are not following suit.

Interesting that public services of a swiss town start to accept bitcoin, come on to see if more cities start doing the same. But i think that it will take long time to take on other countries.

Well Switzerland is so politically neutral and embracing of new technology be it finance or any other matters. I do not think it is surprising at all. Rather to me it seems like it should have arrived earlier haha

I hope it spread like forest fire and soon entire Switzerland and then Europe followed by whole world start using bitcoin.
I am dying to see that happen

Great move,small town in swiss should be have complete facility and have a big area with internet connection. and this is could be problem to other city in europe or asia,small city in asia have no complete facility and some of them have no internet connection,how bitcoin or blockchain should face this?

This is a nice step for Zug, being the new tech town in Switzerland. The world needs more of these towns so mass adoption of BTC should not be too hard to accomplish. By public services, what does it usally cover? Will they be accepting payments for taxes, car registrations, driver's license and passport renewals, and all that stuff?

Wow, what a very good news, "Crypto Valley" haha I'm thinking about how people have transactions there. I wanna be there and wanna see how people live for each day in that Crypto Valley. But definitely, this is a good news.

Switzerland is technically advance and has most of the good paying IT jobs for computer science professionals.Definitely,allowing the acceptance of bitcoins in such conditions will be a right option since they have a good number of people who actually prefer using bitcoins.Unlike other economies ,Switzerland has the least corrupt government in Europe and their finances are well managed hence using bitcoins is no way a harm to their environment.

Good for them, I'm glad to see more places starting to accept Bitcoin for more essential services.

Maybe I would move there at some point in the future, but not just for the Bitcoin. it'll play a factor in it, but it might be good to just get away from everything else and go to a small town somewhere cold, and just relax.

Agreed, and well put. :)

Chris

It is really a great news of tech country accepting bitcoin in their finance. What you are telling about asia with internet facility is a long back story , now even in small villages you could find the internet and the users you will find who have less knowledge about english are using internet in their local language, Each and every person today having smartphones with internet facitliy in the small towns where you would have not thought.

It would be very handy to be able to pay your utility bills with Bitcoin sometimes when you are short on cash so I think it's a great idea from the government of the city of Zug to add Bitcoin as a legitimate payment method. I find it a little bit strange that they decided to cap it to only 200 Swiss francs though but anyways it's another mainstream win for Bitcoin  ;)

Vitalik Buterin lives in Zug :)

I would have to agree with you, because the Euro is present in so many countries some countries will find it difficult to be as welcoming as the Swiss have.

The UK I am hoping will move in a similar direction as they are presently not completely against the idea of bitcoin.

The canton of Zug is well-known for its low taxes. When I remember right, Zug has the lowest taxes in Switzerland. This is the reason why a lot of famous people live there, among other things Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel (both Formela 1 champions) and Tina Tuner (world famous singer. she even got the Swiss citizenship).

For real or you are joking?

What ever services come under public utilities, which would include, electricity, water, gas, phone, internet, the article also mentions dues, which I understand would mean that you'd be able to pay your loan/mortgage/etc. payments with bitcoins too. And this in turn means that you can expect to see most, if not all, shops accepting BTC soon.

BTW, the full article from where the snippet in OP is copied from is here: https://news.bitcoin.com/swiss-town-accepts-bitcoin/

Yes for real

https://about.me/vitalik_buterin  "Zug, Switzerland"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalik_Buterin#Personal_Life

While Zug does have low taxes none of the people you mentioned does actually live there nor pay any of them taxes there. Schuhmacher lives in Gland which is located in canton Waadt, Tina Turner lives in Küsnacht which is located in canton Zurich, Vettel lives in the canton Thurgau. The low taxes in Zug concern the rich swiss citizens rather than foreign millionaires. Rich foreigners can get special tax-deals in other places than Zug easily and they often do.

I really don't know whether to be happy or unhappy after reading this news. I personally never wanted bitcoin to become a utility payment service. The characteristic of bitcoin is not suitable for public service payments. Its dynamic price is not good for utility payment.

Due to the dynamic price, the public service providers will have restructure their fees every moment. Otherwise, you will pay more or less for the service and either they will make huge profit or loss every time.

Let fiat handle all these and let bitcoin become the world's investment destination.

IMO not too bad for a town, being a center of fintech. The thing is, bitcoin for utility payments is not so new for the rest of the world. Their next step should be like a blockchain-backed legislation and government - that would put them on the spotlight.

Even Steam is integrating Bitcoin . This is awesome, because if you can use it on the market too, that means that you can sell steam items for bitcoin, and this is kinda crazy, but what if steam made their own cryptocurrency. And now someone can get steam games without having to cash out their bitcoins to a currency to buy games.

And and few people still think bitcoin will die soon.... ::)
Great news! give it time and other places will start to accept bitcoin as payment for public services, taxes and other stuff.

Didn't know that. But it comes as no surprise, since the more sane regulatory approach of this region serves as a true magnet for innovation. Shapeshift is also located there. It's reasonable to assume that the existing Bitcoin businesses in Zug have something to do with this new initiative.

Embracing Bitcoin at an early stage holds huge opportunities especially for smaller jurisdictions. If they succeed in attracting Bitcoin companies they will be able to reap returns from a global business or even become new financial centers. These potential benefits are even more significant considering the comparatively low cost of public administration of small regions with limited population. So the standard of living there could skyrocket.

ya.ya.yo!