The Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, with its Judgement no. 26807/2020, stated the following principle.
Should cryptocurrencies be advertised and sold as an actual proposal of financial investment (on the website in object, information was given in order to convince the consumer to invest, e.g. “those who bet on Bitcoins earned more than 97% in two years”), they must be considered as financial instruments and subject to the specific relevant law, i.e. the Testo Unico Finanziario (T.U.F.) in Italy.
Moreover, this entails that the concerned activity is subject to the supervision of the competent authority responsible for regulating the securities market, i.e. CONSOB, in Italy.
It is important to highlight that the Italian Supreme Court has not ruled that all exchanges of cryptocurrencies are to be considered as financial instruments. Nevertheless, it stated that if they are sold as such, then they follow the relevant financial instruments regulations.
