Report contents
Europe · Established
Italy
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 68 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +1 |
| Inflation 2.7% · unbanked 14% · remittances 0.5% GDP · capital controls 0 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.043 |
| Need multiplier | ×0.564 |
| Livability score | 0.457 |
Raw 68/84 = 0.810 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.04, from five components: inflation 2.7% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 14% of adults, remittances 0.5% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.00 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×0.56. Livability score 0.457, rank #31 of 79.
Three findings
A perfect spending pillar, a Bitcoin Valley, and the highest ATM count in the European set
Italy scores a flawless 20 of 20 on spending. Rovereto's "Bitcoin Valley" in Trentino remains an active merchant cluster offering 10% to 22% Bitcoin discounts, joined by hubs in Brescia and Bolzano. The country runs 216 crypto ATMs, the largest absolute count of the 24, at 43 per million urban residents, and roughly 18% of Italians own crypto.
The traditional banks moved in: Intesa Sanpaolo bought Bitcoin, UniCredit packaged it
Intesa Sanpaolo executed a proprietary 1-million-euro Bitcoin trade in January 2025 and held around 100 million dollars of crypto by year-end, while UniCredit launched a Bitcoin capital-protected certificate and joined a stablecoin consortium. This institutional adoption sits behind the strong access pillar even though Italy lacks a bank-issued retail product, keeping on-ramp friction at 3.
The seventh-best capability on the planet slides 24 places once need is priced in
Italy scores 68 of 84 in raw capability but a Crypto-Necessity Index of just 0.04: inflation 2.7%, 14% unbanked, remittances 0.5% of GDP, no capital controls, no sanctions. The ×0.56 need multiplier drops it from rails #7 to livability #31. This is the index working as designed, not a defect: a deep, bank-backed market with little structural necessity behind it.
In one line
"Italy has a Bitcoin Valley, the continent's densest ATM fleet, and banks that now hold Bitcoin on their own books. What it does not have is a population that needs any of it to get by."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 3/4, trending liberalising. Legislative Decree 129/2024 and Law Decree 95/2025 built Italy's MiCA (the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation) framework, with CONSOB as CASP supervisor and the OAM VASP (virtual asset service provider) registry sunsetting 30 December 2025, hard backstop 30 June 2026. The flat crypto tax rises from 26% to 33% on gains from 2026, a tightening signal tempering the licensing momentum.