La City of Lugano presented yesterday – March 13, 2025 – at Villa Ciani, as part of the Beyond Blockchain event, SwissLedger, the evolution of 3Achain technology, and Swiss Digital Key, an initiative that aims to promote the development of innovative FinTech solutions.
The event brought together institutions, companies and universities to outline the future of digital finance and the strategic role of Lugano in this scenario. During the meeting, innovative applications of blockchain in the business, banking and financial sectors were discussed, with the participation of representatives of cantonal and federal institutions.
Why does Lugano continue to invest in blockchain?
Since 2021, 3Achain is the technology that supports the LVGA, the digital currency of Lugano. Its decentralized infrastructure is supported by numerous companies and allows the 500 economic activities partners of the MyLugano circuit and over 40.000 users to make financial transactions in complete safety and without paying transaction costs.
Over 30 companies support the network, hosting validator nodes and developing concrete applications in different fields such as digital certification, digital art, the legal sector and asset tokenization. Now, with the evolution of 3Achain into SwissLedger, Lugano takes a further step: becoming the reference distributed ledger at national level through a secure, interoperable and innovation-friendly infrastructure.
SwissLedger: An Institutional Blockchain at the Service of Finance
SwissLedger is an institutional blockchain that adopts a Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus model, ensuring security, scalability and high resistance to computer manipulation. Its main applications include:
- Document digitization and notarization: secure registration of contracts and official documents.
- Asset tokenization: digital representation of financial assets, real estate, and artwork.
- Advanced Security: Data protection with high cryptographic standards.
- Interoperability: Integration with existing financial institutions and infrastructures.
Companies that become SwissLedger partners contribute their computing power to maintaining the network, gain free access to the technology, and can use it to test and develop innovative services and applications.
Swiss Digital Key: A Collaborative Network to Promote Financial Innovation
In conjunction with the launch of SwissLedger, Lugano introduces Swiss Digital Key, an initiative designed to:
- Offering a digital identity and secure electronic signature for contracts and banking services.
- Fostering Open Banking by connecting financial institutions and fintechs.
- Create a regulatory sandbox to test financial innovations in a protected environment.
- Automate banking and business processes through smart contracts.
Swiss Digital Key is a public-private initiative based in Lugano that was created to test and create advanced solutions specifically designed for the banking sector. This project aims to modernize financial services by leveraging blockchain technology to improve security, transparency and regulatory compliance.
New collaborations and concrete use cases
SwissLedger ecosystem expands with new key partners, including:
- Canton Ticino, Var Group, Bitcoin Suisse, OFFICINEBIT, Avaloq, HCLTech Confinale Wealth Solutions and UBQ.
- The City has signed two Letters of Intent (LOI) with:
- Technology partners (Avaloq, HCLTech Confinale Wealth Solutions, UBQ, Noku), to develop advanced blockchain solutions.
- Academic institutions (SUPSI and USI), to promote training, research and joint projects.
In parallel, the SwissLedger ecosystem is expanding with new concrete applications in various sectors:
- OFFICINEBIT with Artchain: digital certification of artworks to ensure authenticity and transparency.
- Logol with Elle.lawyer: Blockchain-based legal platform for notarization and time certification.
- Palo Alto with Connect2Bank: Solution for the secure management of sensitive information in the banking sector.
Lugano, a hub for financial innovation
After celebrating the third anniversary of the Plan ₿ project last week in the new coworking space inaugurated in the city center at the end of 2024, Lugano is increasingly confirming itself as a point of reference in the adoption of emerging technologies.
Thanks to an ecosystem open to experimentation and collaboration between the public and private sectors, the city continues to innovate. With SwissLedger and Swiss Digital Key, Lugano strengthens its role as an international hub for digital finance, helping to position Switzerland among the global leaders in the FinTech sector.
“Lugano continues to invest with determination in emerging technologies – declared Mayor Michele Foletti – to create an environment favorable to innovation and entrepreneurship. With SwissLedger and Swiss Digital Key, we are making a concrete contribution to the digital transformation of finance, positioning our city as a development model for the sector”.
