PORTUGAL Law and Practice Contributed by: Nuno Lima da Luz and Tomás Gomes da Silva, Cuatrecasas
involves promoting technology, educating the pub- lic and businesses, and providing a unified voice for the ecosystem. • Instituto New Economy : founded in 2021, this association supports decentralised technology in Portugal. With more than 30 corporate and HNWI associates, its aim is to educate, transform and assist the public and private sectors in understand- ing blockchain and its use cases. • Federação Portuguesa das Associações da Cripto Economia : born out of the collaboration among various domestic associations in the sector, FACE acts as a unified federation dedicated to the development of the crypto economy in Portugal. Its primary roles include advocating for the industry in legislative actions, ensuring that public policies are well-considered to maximise the economic impact of Web3, and providing training and public educa- tion on crypto-assets and blockchain technology. • Instituto Português de Bitcoin : formally established in mid-2025, the IPB is a specialised body dedi- cated exclusively to the advocacy, education, and adoption of Bitcoin. Its core mission is to position Portugal at the forefront of monetary and tech- nological innovation. The IPB actively engages with legislators and regulators to promote favour- able laws, defends individual financial sovereignty (including the right to self-custody), and has notably lobbied policymakers to study the viability of creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve for the Portu- guese state. These entities frequently collaborate, for example, the APBC and Instituto New Economy have worked together to propose adaptations to Portuguese leg- islation to better suit the needs of technology com- panies. Their broader roles include engaging with the government on regulatory developments, supporting start-ups, standardising best practices, and connect- ing the Portuguese blockchain ecosystem with inter-
protection is limited outside the AML/CFT perimeter. That said, Portuguese private law can still frame cryp- to-assets as assets or rights capable of being held, transferred, and (in practice) seized or forfeited, even if the Civil Code does not provide a bespoke “crypto- property” category. This is visible in Portuguese case law where courts have treated crypto-assets as items that can be apprehended and returned (for example, invalid seizure leading to an order to return crypto- assets held in mobile-wallet applications), and also as items that can be declared forfeited to the state as “advantages” from crime. In enforcement terms, the practical difference from tangible property is that control over private keys, exchange accounts, or wal- let access becomes decisive, which shifts evidentiary and operational emphasis from physical possession to technical access and attribution. Ownership transfer in Portuguese law is generally analysed through the underlying legal relationship (sale, exchange, donation, settlement) and the “deliv- ery/control” mechanics that evidence transfer. For crypto-assets, the most operationally relevant “deliv- ery” proxies are: • on-chain movement to a counterparty-controlled address; • off-chain ledger changes within a custodian or exchange; and • contractual allocation of risk and timing where set- tlement is not purely on-chain. ESMA stakeholder materials also note that crypto markets require greater clarity on when settlement becomes “final”, and that traditional concepts of settlement finality do not automatically translate to crypto-asset settlement. As a result, disputes about ownership often turn on a combined factual matrix: wallet provenance, custodian terms, and the transac- tion trail, rather than on possession of a tangible thing. Collateralisation raises two distinct issues in Portugal: ordinary security interests under general private law, and the special “financial collateral” regime. Portu- gal’s financial collateral framework, implementing the EU Financial Collateral Arrangements Directive, is designed for collateral over “cash”, “financial instru- ments,” and certain “credit claims”, with simplified for-
national organisations. 1.2 Crypto-Assets 1.2.1 Property Considerations
Portuguese law does not treat crypto-assets as “currency” or legal tender, and the BdP has publicly warned that crypto-assets are not “real currency,” that no one is obliged to accept them, and that investor
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