Panama City Greenlights Bitcoin, Ether Payments for Tax and City Services

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By Shaurya Malwa|Edited by Parikshit Mishra

Updated Apr 17, 2025, 4:32 p.m. Published Apr 17, 2025, 6:53 a.m.

FastNews (CoinDesk)

Panama City locals can soon settle taxes, parking tickets, permits, and other fees with bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and stablecoins USDC and tether (USDT), mayor Mayer Mizrachi said late Wednesday.

“Prior administrations tried to push a bill in the senate to make this possible, but we found a simple way to do it without new legislation,” Mizrachi said in an X post. “Legally public institutions must receive funds in $, so we partner with a bank that will take care of the transaction receiving in crypto and convert on spot to $.

“This allows for the free flow of crypto in the entire economy and entire government,” he added.

Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis.

Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA.

He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.

Shaurya Malwa


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