Italian Senate undertakes first moves at classifying & clarifying Blockchain

Seeking to expand its regulatory frameworks for new technology disciplines, the Italian Senate Committee for Corporate Affairs has approved the nation’s first blockchain focused legislative directives.

The draft mandate aims to deliver an initial legislative framework for technologies and IT systems, which operate financial transactions/engagements/exchanges through decentralised registries, ledgers or crypto-based protocols.

Developing its first legislative proposals, the Italian Senate moves to further establish regulatory clarity on blockchain-based registrations, verifications, data-storage and ledger parameters.

Strengthening Italian legal frameworks, the Senate’s mandate on blockchain legislations seeks to further identify a clear legal definition on ‘Smart Contracts’ satisfying the operational needs of Italian IT stakeholders, regulatory bodies and Italy’s Digital Agency.

Should the mandate be approved and verified by the Senate Chamber of Deputies, Italy will become the second European Union member state to attempt to process governing blockchain regulations.

In November 2018, EU member state of Malta passed multiple blockchain directives attached to its new ‘Virtual Financial Assets Act’ and the ‘Malta Digital Innovation Authority’.

The Malta government states that it has become the first EU jurisdiction to implement a blockchain regulatory framework for internal l and international stakeholders.

In its first publication for 2019, the European Market & Securities Authority warned multiple EU institutions that legislative consensus, policies and practices were needed to regulate/monitor blockchain and cryptocurrency verticals, to avoid the prominent risk of these technology disciplines becoming money-laundering vehicles.