In brief
- Cardano’s ADA token is now available as a payment option in 137 Spar stores across Switzerland.
- The brick-and-mortar retail payments option is available through Cardano’s integration with fiat on- and off- ramp platform DFX.swiss.
- The partnership is “planting seeds” for a financial ecosystem in which “paying with ADA is as natural as paying with a card,” the Cardano Foundation’s CEO said.
Cardano’s ADA token is now available as a payment option in Spar supermarkets across Switzerland, following the blockchain’s integration with fiat on- and off-ramp platform DFX.swiss.
The integration leverages DFX.swiss’ crypto payment standard Open Crypto Pay, already used to enable payments in cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the USDC, USDT and DAI stablecoins.
Open Crypto Pay enables Cardano users to spend ADA tokens from native wallets to be used directly at the checkout for payment in Swiss Spar stores, by scanning a QR code. Stores receive payment in Swiss francs, “regardless of the cryptocurrency the customer paid in,” according to the Open Crypto Pay website.
The platform does not implement specific double-spend protection for brick-and-mortar merchants, calling it a “theoretical issue” as unlikely given the technical complexity and ease with which other methods of non-payment, such as “leaving a store without paying,” can be accomplished.
So far, 137 Spar supermarkets across Switzerland and neighboring Lichtenstein can accept payments using Open Crypto Pay—though according to a map on its website, stores in Geneva, Swiss capital Bern, and Davos, which hosts the World Economic Forum, have yet to be onboarded.
Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, called the integration “the beginning of a fundamental shift in how value moves through society,” in a press release shared with Decrypt. He added that the partnership is “planting seeds” for a financial ecosystem in which “paying with ADA is as natural as paying with a card.”
Switzerland and crypto
Switzerland has gained a reputation as an early adopter of crypto, with some 350 businesses in the city of Lugano now accepting Bitcoin for payment as of December 2025.
While a citizen-led initiative has campaigned for an amendment to the Swiss Constitution to allow the country’s central bank to add Bitcoin to its reserves, the Swiss National Bank remains ambivalent about the prospect.
In April 2025, the bank’s chairman Martin Schlegel rejected the idea, citing crypto’s volatility and market liquidity as concerns. “Cryptocurrency cannot currently fulfill the requirements for our currency reserves,” he added.
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