Bitcoins: Regulatory Patterns

Innovations bring forth potential revolutions in a variety of fields, including the legal one. The advent of the Internet posed a threat to the traditional legal framework, challenging the sustainability of the established legal institutions and regulations worldwide. Nonetheless, after an initial phase of ‘‘legal inertia,” legal systems resorted to regulate the innovations of the digital era through the existing legal instruments. Over the past years, the virtual world has given rise to a new conceptualization of money and currency exchanges, fostered by the ongoing progress in the field of Information Communication and Technology (ICT). Cash payments seem to be obsolete, supplanted by mobile payment systems, electronic money, and the flourishing category of virtual currencies and cryptocurrencies, whose most debated example is represented by bitcoin. Presently, another regulatory challenge lies ahead: identifying the proper legal framework—if any—applicable to cryptocurrencies. So, the essay aims at analyzing the main features characterizing these innovative ‘‘currencies,” the risks inherent in their architecture, as well as the benefits they offer, with a specific focus on of bitcoins and on the subjects best suited to regulate them.