ITALY Law and Practice Contributed by: Francesco Paolo Patti and Marta Vittoria Colombo, Studio Patti
1. Overview of Blockchain and Crypto- Assets 1.1 Blockchain 1.1.1 Evolution of Uses of Blockchain Over the past 12 months, Italian market practice has increasingly consolidated around the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) as the primary compliance benchmark for conduct- ing crypto-asset activities in Italy. This development has occurred even as certain domestic implement- ing measures continue to mature. The overall trajec- tory is clear: operators active in Italy are expected to align their organisational, operational and governance frameworks with MiCAR standards in anticipation of full supervisory convergence. At the national level, the legislative framework identi- fies Consob and the Banca d’Italia as the competent authorities and delineates their respective areas of responsibility. Consob exercises oversight over con- duct of business, transparency and investor protec- tion, while the Banca d’Italia is entrusted with pruden- tial supervision, including governance, organisational requirements and risk management. This allocation of competences reflects a deliberate extension of tradi- tional financial regulatory principles into the crypto- asset domain. Prior to MiCAR, Italy had established a registration regime for virtual asset service providers through the OAM register. However, this regime was primarily administrative and is now being superseded by the more robust MiCAR framework. As a result, market participants have progressively restructured their internal compliance systems with a view to becoming “authorisation-ready”. This has entailed the development or refinement of policies relating to outsourcing, ICT governance, operational resilience, product governance, marketing controls and complaints handling. The shift is not merely procedural but reflects a broader change in regula- tory posture: operators are preparing for continuous supervision rather than one-off registration. This transformation has also influenced the approach of banks and large financial institutions. Engagement
with crypto-assets is increasingly framed within struc- tured authorisation pathways rather than exploratory or experimental initiatives. Partnerships and group- level strategies are designed to operate within a fore- seeable regulatory perimeter, thereby reducing legal and reputational uncertainty. In parallel with MiCAR, Italy has implemented a frame- work for digital financial instruments based on DLT, in line with the EU DLT Pilot Regime (Regulation (EU) 2022/858). This framework introduces the concept of “digital financial instruments” and provides for their issuance, transfer and registration through a “register for digital circulation”. A central feature of this regime is the official list of “ responsabili del registro ” – entities authorised to operate DLT-based registers. Inclusion requires a for- mal procedure and entails ongoing obligations regard- ing operational reliability, transparency and account- ability. This dual regulatory track, comprising MiCAR for crypto-assets and the DLT framework for financial instruments, has contributed to a gradual reorienta- tion of market initiatives toward tokenised securities and structured capital markets applications. These use cases benefit from an established legal infra- structure, including disclosure obligations, custody arrangements and market abuse rules, which can be adapted to distributed ledger environments. The regu- latory clarity associated with financial instruments has made this segment particularly attractive for institu- tional actors. In practical terms, this has encouraged both institu- tional and market-led initiatives. On the one hand, financial institutions have conducted pilot projects aimed at improving efficiency and auditability in issu- ance processes and life cycle management, including corporate actions, transfer restrictions and collateral enforcement. On the other hand, crypto-native opera- tors have increasingly sought to align their products with securities-like frameworks, with a view to access- ing regulated distribution channels and secondary markets.
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