Bitcoin in the Supreme Court
by Fulvio Sarzana of S.Ippolito, Lawyer Law Firm Sarzana
There Supreme Court of Cassation returns to deal with the 2021 Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
What is the economic value of bitcoins? Can exchanging bitcoins constitute fraud?
The judges of Piazza Cavour had already addressed the issue of the nature of Bitcoin in two sentences of September 17, 2020.
On that occasion the Court of Cassation had held that the bitcoin could be included among financial instruments, due to the particular nature of the exchange proposal contained in a cryptocurrency trading platform.
The Judges had in fact written: "the sale of bitcoins was advertised as a real investment proposalor, so much so that the website where it was advertised provided information suitable for enabling savers to evaluate whether or not to participate in the initiative, stating that "those who bet on bitcoin in two years earned more than 97%"; it is therefore an activity subject to the requirements set forth in Articles 91 et seq. of the TUF, the omission of which constitutes the crime referred to in Article 166, paragraph 1, letter c) of the TUF."“
Bitcoin in the Supreme Court
The sixth criminal section of the Court of Cassation, in a ruling from early March 2021, once again addresses the issue of the economic value of cryptocurrency most famous in the world for the purposes, this time, of contesting the crime of fraud, provided for by article 640 of the penal code.
The appellant in the Supreme Court of Cassation, in particular, denied that the cryptocurrency itself could have sufficient economic significance to constitute the crime of fraud under Article 640 of the Italian Criminal Code. There was no actual acquisition by the perpetrator of an asset having economic value, and the Bitcoins to which the accusation refers cannot be considered such.
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