Swiss Town Accepts Bitcoin for Public Services

[OmegaStarScream]

A town in Switzerland has begun to accept Bitcoin payments for certain city services. The northern town of Zug decided to allow Bitcoin payments earlier this month for public services as a part of a trial run.


You can read more about it at cointelegraph : http://cointelegraph.com/news/swiss-town-accepts-bitcoin-for-public-services

[longbob72]

A town in Switzerland has begun to accept Bitcoin payments for certain city services. The northern town of Zug decided to allow Bitcoin payments earlier this month for public services as a part of a trial run.


You can read more about it at cointelegraph : http://cointelegraph.com/news/swiss-town-accepts-bitcoin-for-public-services

sounds good. but what kind of city service are we talking about? kind of curious about the method of payment also.

[lakuf]

If this was a more massive city or capital it would have affected bitcoin greatly showing people who never knew about bitcoin about it now and that people are using it to there own benefits. Even if it's a small city/town it still affects bitcoin in the surrounding areas leading more people to use bitcoin.

[Yakamoto]

A town in Switzerland has begun to accept Bitcoin payments for certain city services. The northern town of Zug decided to allow Bitcoin payments earlier this month for public services as a part of a trial run.


You can read more about it at cointelegraph : http://cointelegraph.com/news/swiss-town-accepts-bitcoin-for-public-services

sounds good. but what kind of city service are we talking about? kind of curious about the method of payment also.

According to the article, it is public utilities, and there isn't a lot more detail aside from just that information. The link within the article suggests that payments will be done at the town center or the equivalent of that, but from there on I have no idea.

It seems like they have the right idea, I'm interested to see where this goes.

[jt byte]

A town in Switzerland has begun to accept Bitcoin payments for certain city services. The northern town of Zug decided to allow Bitcoin payments earlier this month for public services as a part of a trial run.


You can read more about it at cointelegraph : http://cointelegraph.com/news/swiss-town-accepts-bitcoin-for-public-services

sounds good. but what kind of city service are we talking about? kind of curious about the method of payment also.

I'd think staple services that don't cost "that much" such as water, heating/air and gas.
The higher ones: electricity, cable/internet and mortgage(rent) I would think not.

Excerpt from article:
"The municipality services will be capped at 200 francs worth of Bitcoin, and include services like public utilities."

[Junko]

If this was a more massive city or capital it would have affected bitcoin greatly showing people who never knew about bitcoin about it now and that people are using it to there own benefits. Even if it's a small city/town it still affects bitcoin in the surrounding areas leading more people to use bitcoin.

Well, from a logistics standpoint, it kind of makes sense that it would be easier for smaller towns to implement bitcoin as payment for their public services. Hopefully, it will be successful and other small towns and smaller cities will catch on, not just in Switzerland but other towns and small cities around Europe and around the world. When these show to be a success, then maybe bigger cities will take notice and start incorporating bitcoin payments for public services as well.

Small steps. Slowly, but surely.

[Snorek]

I am interested if they conduct some sort of Bitcoin user base research prior introducing this move. As we could read in the article:

Previous attempts at using Bitcoin for public services have failed

And I think they failed because from what I understand 1 of 100 citizens realistically is bitcoin user and own bitcoin. Maybe 10 - 15 people know what bitcoin is.
So no wonder that people are not utilizing BTC in daily life. I am really curious what it will be this time in Zug.

[interbtc]

Guys this is huge news, much bigger than you may think. Getting bitcoin pushed into such trial truns means it being opened to a lot
of new exposure and gouvernment funds. Its also very important for this project to pass the trial run, because theres no doubt that it will
be used as a reference to many future ones.

[alyssa85]

It is a step in the right direction - but the citizens of Zug need to help things along by actually using bitcoin to pay for their utilities. Otherwise at the end of the trial, they'll conclude demand isn't really there, and scrap it.

We see this over and over in the private sector. XYZ business announces they are accepting bitcoin. Everyone cheers, but no-one actually uses the service because everyone is too busy hoarding their coins. Then the option gets quietly dropped due to lack of use. Then everyone wonders why bitcoin adoption is stalling

[romero121]

It's a big news for the bitcoin users as well the Swiss people. Already they have the banking in which they won't reveal identity. Now with this thing go advanced in banking technology used, also easily spreading happens about bitcoin as most prefer the anonymous nature.