Young Monday: McDonald’s, work in progress for MiCA and Twitter unfreezes Dogecoin

McDonald’s in Lugano accepts payments in Bitcoin, MiCA has been approved by the European Council and Dogecoin is bullish thanks to Twitter and Elon Musk!

This edition of Young Monday for the second week of October 2022 gives us a taste of mass adoption. Would you like to pay in Bitcoin for your Crispy McBacon or a Big Mac? Well, it’s now possible at the Mcdonald’s in Lugano! In other news, the MiCA regulation on crypto-assets markets has been approved by the European Council and Dogecoin has been the star of the week thanks to recent developments concerning the negotiation between Elon Musk and Twitter.

Lugano’s McDonald’s now accepts payments in Bitcoin!

McDonald’s is the latest addition in the list of companies accepting payments in Bitcoin, specifically at its restaurant in Lugano, Switzerland. The announcement took place on Wednesday, the 5th of October 2022. It represents a further step forward in terms of crypto mass adoption for this city located in the Canton of Ticino. The city of Lugano has long shown its affinity with the world of cryptocurrency.

The possibility of paying in Bitcoin with the Tether stablecoin (USDT) is the icing on the cake for the ‘Plan B’ initiative, which was undertaken thanks to the collaboration between the city of Lugano and Tether in early 2022.

The initiative, named after the famous stock-to-flow advocate, has as its main goal the adoption and acceleration of cryptocurrency use in the Swiss city. Paolo Ardoino, CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Tether, said: ‘We have worked together to ensure that the city’s technology infrastructure is able to support cryptocurrency payments.

So what can you buy with Bitcoin in Lugano? Quite a few things actually, including McDonald’s sandwiches and parking passes. The city of Lugano is also planning to launch its own stablecoin called LVGO, through which it will also be possible to pay taxes. Switzerland, and in particular the canton of Ticino, has always been an important centre for Web3 technologies. So much so that it has been nicknamed the ‘Crypto Valley’. On the 28th and 29th of October 2022, the Bitcoin World Forum, a conference on the topic of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, will be held at the Lugano Congress Centre.

MiCA approved by the European Council, now it’s up to the Commission

We continue in harmony with the main topic of the previous paragraph: mass adoption. On Wednesday, the 5th of October 2022, the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the European Council (COREPER) approved MiCA or ‘Markets in Crypto Assets’. A set of rules that will serve to regulate the cryptocurrency market. The main objective of the MiCA regulatory document is to safeguard users and regulate the cryptocurrency market in a more general sense, especially for stablecoins. 

In order to enter into force, the MiCA still has to pass one more step: a review by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament, which should take place today, Monday the 10th of October 2022. Thereafter, the regulation will undergo legal scrutiny and a plenary vote in the European Parliament. The final step, which will precede implementation, is publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. At that point, MiCA will finally enter into force, according to some estimates this should happen by the end of 2024!

Dogecoin becomes bullish thanks to Twitter and Elon Musk

On Tuesday, the 4th of October 2022, Dogecoin experienced a bullish impulse, which lasted only a few hours and enabled it to close the day with +8%. But why did Dogecoin’s price rise so suddenly in the middle of the bear market? Once again, the answer has to do with Elon Musk‘s recent statements on negotiations for the takeover of the social network Twitter. Just last Tuesday, Elon Musk renewed his offer of $54.20 per share to Twitter, which he had already proposed a few months ago.

Within minutes of the news release, Elon Musk’s favourite crypto drew a green candle of +8.1% on the price chart. The relationship between the most famous memecoin of all time and Tesla’s owner has been going on for many years, and the Tycoon’s more or less regular tweets now mark both bearish market phases and bull markets. Precisely on the topic of Twitter, Elon Musk had exposed his thoughts some time ago by proposing a very curious and probably ironic solution to limit the presence of bots and fake accounts on the social network: “Pay a very small sum in Dogecoin for each interaction with Twitter”.

Barring another change of plans, which is not too unlikely given the eccentricity of the tycoon, Musk nevertheless seems intent on acquiring the social network. In a tweet dating from the 5th of October 2022, he stated that he wants to build ‘the ultimate application’ that should be sufficient on its own to satisfy all users’ social needs. Should the deal go through, this application will be created out of Twitter. Who knows what role Dogecoin will play in Elon Musk’s revolutionary application, which as of today is called ‘X’.Let’s stay in the social media space for our bonus news of this edition of Young Monday. Kim Kardashian was accused of exploiting her popularity on Instagram to misleadingly promote an ERC-20 token called Ethereum Max (EMAX), built on the Ethereum blockchain. The token, launched in June 2021 turned out to be a Pump&Dump, a type of scam in which the price of a crypto or token is aggressively promoted in order to artificially inflate the price. Kim Kardashian was found guilty and will have to pay a fine of USD 1.26 million.

Buy BTC on Young Platform

Buy now