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The term cryptocurrency technically defines the so-called "virtual currency", not issued or guaranteed by a central bank or public authority, not necessarily linked to a legal tender currency, used as a means of exchange for the purchase of goods and services or for investment purposes and transferred, archived and negotiated electronically (Article 1, paragraph 2, letter qq. of the Italian law Legislative Decree No. 231/2007).
The main doctrinal debates concern the consideration or not of cryptocurrency as legal currency as it does not have a "sovereign seal", not being issued by a state authority but deriving from activities of a private nature.
Cryptocurrencies are not subject to fiat currency (typical of legal tender) and the creditor is not obliged to accept them as payment.
Over time, Italian jurisprudence has dealt with the question relating to the nature and qualification of the digital currency by tracing cryptocurrencies to the area of ??intangible legal assets, such as "things that can be the object of rights" (Article 810 of the Italian civil code) and which are fungible (Court of Florence - Bankruptcy Section - no. 18 of 21.01.2019).
The spread of cryptocurrencies in commercial exchanges, corporate relations and forms of investment has raised numerous problems and with them the need to define the aspects related to the possibility of subjecting them to enforcement procedures.
On the issue there are still no precise jurisprudential indications but doctrinal interpretations tend to believe that cryptocurrencies can be subject to forced expropriation by the creditor but with some limitations related to the place of conservation of the same (hardware, software wallet or web wallet) and to the their traceability to the debtor.
In particular, virtual currencies can be subject to foreclosure both from the debtor if they are stored in an electronic wallet (called "wallet") and the characteristics of the wallet allow them to be uniquely traced back to the executing party, and from third parties as long as they are stored in the web wallet. (can be created online on special portals known as wallet providers) and on condition that the platform manager is able to identify the owner.
In addition to the "direct" instruments of forced execution, the Italian law recognizes the creditor a means of indirect coercion of the debtor, through art. 614 bis of the Criminal Procedure Code which provides, in the event of a conviction for the fulfillment of obligations other than the payment of sums of money, the payment of a sum of money for any violation or delay in the execution of the provision.
This allows cryptocurrencies to be "converted" into current currency for the purpose of obtaining satisfaction from the creditor in a way that is certainly more secure than executing on virtual currencies whose value is not defined in a "legal" manner and can suffer sudden and significant changes in value.
