“Crypto Last Will & Testament” arrives in Italy

In Italy, two lawyers have registered the trademarks “Crypto Testament” and “Crypto Will” at the Ministry of Economic Development.

A service to recover bitcoins after the death of the owner

That’s a solution designed to ensure families that the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency assets of the deceased are not lost. 

In fact, in case the tokens are stored on proprietary wallets, of which only the deceased had the seed and private keys, in many cases, it is impossible to recover them. That’s a much more common occurrence than is commonly believed, and there are now millions of BTC lost in this way. 

With the figure of the Crypto Executor, Crypto Wills proposes to solve the problem because they will act as guarantors for both the person making the will and the heirs. In fact, they are professional figures with technical-legal skills, reliability deriving from membership of the register, and possession of compulsory professional insurance.

The two lawyers behind this solution are Rocco Greco, from Montichiari, and Gianluca Bertolini, from Trapani. 

Together they have studied a solution that allows the management of the transfer of ownership in case of death of the owner of the tokens, even if they disappear without having declared the possession of the digital currencies. 

The goals of Crypto Execution

The goals of Crypto Executor and Crypto Will also include solving problems related to the recovery of tokens when the owner dies without having informed the heirs of the presence of cryptocurrencies in the inherited asset. Another problem is when the cryptocurrency owner dies, having indicated in his testamentary bequest that the tokens should be distributed among several heirs, given that in these cases, the heirs themselves have to deal with delicate issues unexplored by Italian jurisprudence from a fiscal, legal and practical point of view.

According to a recent survey published by Corriere della Sera, 18% of Italians own Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, and legal issues in the case of token inheritance are the order of the day. 

Lawyer Rocco Greco states: 

“The Italian legislator cannot continue forever to leave a dangerous regulatory vacuum, leaving judges with the arduous task of interpreting and applying the rules by analogy.

With the increase of cryptocurrency holders, their weight, especially economic, will involve many areas of law, in particular commercial and inheritance law. Many cryptocurrency holders (even if the vast majority are under 40) will sooner or later pass away, with all the problems that follow from a legal – succession point of view. So Crypto Will and Crypto Executor may be a great solution.”