McDonald’s now accepts Bitcoin and Tether in the Swiss city of Lugano
Lugano announced it could accept cryptocurrencies as legal tender. Available data suggest that Lugano residents want to use crypto more in areas like parking tickets, utilities, and student tuition fees. Up until now, 19 McDonald’s branches have been accepting Bitcoin.
Russia blocks the OKX website for alleged unreliable financial information
On 4 October, Russia’s state media monitoring service, Roskomnadzor, blocked access to the crypto exchange OKX for the country’s residents. According to the TASS news agency, the OKX website was blocked for “disseminating unreliable financial information.”
Russia has blocked access to many crypto exchanges, but the existing precedent suggests it can be overruled. Thus, Binance was banned in Russia in 2020, but a regional court reversed the decision, and the crypto exchange became accessible to Russia’s residents in 2021.
Near Protocol partners with Google Cloud to support the devs of Web3 apps
Near Foundation has announced a new partnership with Google Cloud and Near Protocol for the Pagoda, which provides support for Near’s Web3 startup platform.
Google Cloud launched a new digital assets team in January to support the development and evolution of the blockchain ecosystem. Google Cloud did a similar partnership with Binance’s smart contract blockchain platform in September.