CTRL/SHIFT - 13 06 2026 PARTHENOPE STAGE - STEFANO CAPACCIOLI - WEB3 WHAT'S UP FOR COMPANIES?

Ok, we're ready. I pass the microphone to Stefano. I'm relaunching. Good afternoon everyone. Today I'm not going to talk about taxes, so it's a bit of a strange thing, right?

Because it 's usually the topic I use to introduce my stuff. Today I will talk about WhatsApp for Companies Web 3. If slides could Here they are. Who am I? I'm a chartered accountant, a professor of blockchain and cyber security at the University of Macerata, and I've been doing a lot of things related to the crypto world since 2013.

Let's talk about why WhatsApp for companies, the web three. In the meantime, let's see what Web 3 has to offer, along the lines of the analysis done by Andresen Orovitz. You can also find it online in Chris Dixon's book on this is their analysis of the three phases of the internet. From the reading phase, that of the information economy, the static web, Web 1, we have moved on to the Platform economy phase, Web 2.0, in which in addition to reading one could also write, and therefore become a content creator, which is what made the internet mainstream in Italy.

Well, the third, the third trend, according to Andre Norovic, and I prefer them because it's an investment fund that puts money into it and as a rule I prefer those who put money into it rather than those who make theories, because those who make theories could be wrong, they put money into it, it depends. we are moving towards the one-of-a-kind red-own phase, so on the internet it will be possible to hold something and therefore we will move towards the token economy. Token economy which is closely connected to the crypto world because it is through the crypto system with which one can own something online. It seems like theory, but if we go and see the world. Now I keep playing with the pen and the slides don't move, but it's okay.

If we go and look at the OM data, if you fast- forward the slides , well, no, a little too fast. I'm arguing about it. OM data, we see that the users of the crypto-asset world in Italy are more than 2 million, at least the latest OM data available which are from June 30th of 2025, at least 2 million of them had an account and used crypto on an OM-registered exchange. Let's remember that only 4 out of 10 of the top 10 were registered OM, so presumably these figures are underestimated. consequently , according to the Polytechnic University of Milan, there could be between 5 and 6 million Italians using cryptocurrency.

And if we look, most of the users are under 40, so they will be the users of tomorrow, the consumers of tomorrow and the taxpayers of tomorrow. So it is a world in which in the future presumably the Andresen Orlov hypothesis will be founded. Consequently, since this is a world that is moving towards, we see how companies can use it. I have presented three cases: payment treasury, Tocenization and Real World Assets, and new Web 3 products. And regarding payment treasury, we will see how stable coins can impact it, regarding technologyization, what the trends may be, and finally how the new Web 3 products can be used, and how companies can effectively use them to develop their business.

Meanwhile, when we approach Crypto Assets, we have a problem with the internal rules which are the rules of crypto asset marketing, the Omica crypto asset marketing regulation , which we have the three categories that I think have plagued you in recent years: money tokens, asset reference tokens which is more theory than practice because to date in Europe there are no authorized asset reference tokens and other crypto assets. Stable coins. I think you all know what stable coins are, which are tokens that tend to have a stable value relative to an asset or currency. We have the first problem for the use of stable coins for corporate treasury. Do we use mica compliant or not?

or rather MT in euros also MT in dollars, not compliant which give the right to reimbursement at par, which have no exchange risk, which have a substance of credits or stable coin dollars, knowing that the stable coin dollars are more than 98% of those in circulation, because the real problem is that even though we have the stable coins, 98% of those in circulation are in dollars and in the case of dollars do we use the teter or do we use the USD Coin? And we know that Tether is the most used, but it is not compliant, while USD Coin is not compliant. What are the benefits within a company? Did you make these choices or find the solutions? First of all, faster transactions and 24/7/365 operations, something we do n't have in the traditional financial world.

Transfer costs in cross-border transfers are extremely low in both cost and time. the possibility of optimizing corporate liquidity, given the other two systems, access to a stable currency in volatile environments. Think about someone who has a subsidiary in a country with a fragile banking system or, worse, a shaky currency, like Venezuela or other countries. They need transparency in payments, the ability to schedule them, and the returns on deposits and the optimization of Treasury funds, thus the ability to generate returns on them, something that is often not possible with corporate liquidity. Nothing, I'm absolutely against technology.

Today I'm back to talking about taxes. the risks, the risks obviously stable coin, that is the issuer risk because obviously in the stable coin the peg coincides with the depeg risk, which for example has happened over the years , we remember in 2023 the depeg of a few days of USDC due to the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank or other collapses there have been and then the technological challenges because obviously it brings a series of technological challenges. Systemic risks for a country are objectively the most worrying because a stable coin leads to banking disintermediation, the possibility of capital flight or circumvention of currency restrictions with the risk of illicit use and critical compliance requirements because, when I introduce stable coins into my company, the first problem is negotiation and contractualization because with a bank transfer I have proof of having made the payment. When I use a stable coin, I need to be sure that the destination address belongs to my creditor and consequently I will have to contractually establish it appropriately because one day, it is true that that transaction exists, but that other destination address does not necessarily belong to the person who was supposed to have the money. The classic cases of made in the middle have not happened in the past.

that the address has been changed and therefore the initial focus is on negotiation, but more than anything else on contractualization to avoid subsequent legal disputes , the identification of the technical tools of the company procedures, because you know not your keys, not your coins, but whoever knows the keys can take away the money and consequently put in place a series of adequate technical tools and obviously the choice of service providers for those who then do the rampon-rampon or use other people's payment systems. Obviously, with the legal and regulatory compliance aspect, taxation and accounting, anti-money laundering and traceability are open questions. Obviously the stable coin path within a company. I'll leave you with some suggestions. Which one should it be?

So, defining the structure, contracting with the counterparty, managing service providers and contracting, complying with, well, tax and accounting regulations, AML measures where necessary, and then supporting documentation. Having seen this, let's look at the second aspect which is that of the rear word asset, therefore the possibility of tokenization. Here we are in an extremely liquid legal market phase because there are some initial legal bases for the tokenization of shares and bonds with the DLT Pilot Regime, but we must always remember that the token does not change the system, but the token is a casing, it is a container and therefore the regime of the underlying asset always follows , that is, a tokenized bond always remains a bond and therefore this must be taken into consideration because it can then lead to solutions and possibilities. Obviously, when I tokenize assets, tokenize corporate assets, or carry out tokenization activities, I'll have to be particularly careful—we'll see later—about the entire tax accounting part , because that could be a headache or very slippery. Furthermore, this morning I have Marco here before me, the lawyer Marco Tulio Giordano, with whom we often discuss predictions, the use of the prediction market within a company .

It may seem like fantasy, but if we look at some corporate realities, we can see what a prediction market is. It's a platform on which you bet, invest, buy an event, buy the probability of an event within the framework of betting, contracts for difference, financial derivatives, or cryptocurrency regulations. Some are decentralized, but within a company, they could be usefully used to hedge risks. When I have a very high business risk on certain elements, by purchasing a prediction market, I could hedge against that risk because I can consider it as an option. If that event, which is disastrous for me, goes badly, I have the prediction market event I bought that could mitigate, if not eliminate, the losses from that event.

Be careful, when it comes to the issue I'm an accountant, I'm always inside, so I didn't manage to get a bit of tax , don't put it in there. When I tokenize, I add a token, pay attention to taxation and VAT, because just because it's a token doesn't mean there's no VAT, remembering the Court ruling on virtual currencies, but a ruling has just come out that says virtual currencies are exempt from VAT only if they are accepted by the parties as having a liberating value and have a function and have no other function than that. of means of payment. So, when I, as a company, want to tokenize or introduce a payment token, or anything that might be useful to me from this perspective, I have to be careful about the VAT part because it could be extremely tricky. remembering that every time I design a product or token, I have to keep in mind that VAT could become relevant.

I'll give the example of NFT utility tokens, which need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, carefully looking through what that token does. Obviously, if I use all these activities within my company, I then have a problem with their representation in the financial statements because I use them and must represent them first and foremost to shareholders, third parties, the tax authorities, and anyone who may have an interest. And what's the problem? that there is no dedicated principle, the destination counts and a policy is needed. The fact that Bitcoin is completely unreliable from an accounting perspective raises the first concern.

to date, what are the aspects, how are these considered on the basis of an interpretation of the FRS which would be the international standard. He says if it is a long-term holding, put them in intangible assets. If you use them as a business item, put them in storage. Be careful if they are stable coins with the right to a refund, because they are credits, because obviously they assume the function of money. If they are issued by the company, they may be accrued debts with revenue from the performance accrual and on the other we have strong doubts.

Well, obviously when I hold third-party tokens, I have to consider whether I segregate them or not, that is, whether I have a match between the two or not, because the former will go off-balance sheet, the latter will go under the assets for those I own and under the liabilities for the debt I have towards users, indicating the risks and potentials in the notes to the financial statements. with taxonomizing. This applies to the cryptocurrencies I use, so eh Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, BNB, etc. Well, our interpretation is that, aside from the fixed assets inventory, when I hold them as payment instruments, therefore within the year, they should be included in other receivables. while when we talk about crypto assets it becomes an absolute nightmare because obviously the concept of crypto assets that is rewarded under anything else is an ecosystem, it is an archipelago of infinite possibilities whose taxonomization, therefore the identification of a conceptual system becomes absolutely impossible.

I proposed this solution many years ago, which is a five-dimensional one. Depending on the five dimensions, we then try to place them within each conceptual category: the ecosystem, the nature, the crypto-asset, the role, the activity performed, and the position of the entities. Because when I enter them into the financial statements, the other huge problem I have for the true and fair representation towards third parties is identifying the fair value, that is, the value at the end of the year, what is the correct value, the presumed realizable value. So, in fair value, in the traditional world we have three systems. The cost system, so how much did it cost or the cost or the reconstruction cost system , that is, evaluating to do it to make it simpler, I evaluate a property how much it costs me to redo it.

So how much does it cost me to do it the same way? Or the income approach, that is, I take all the cash flows that it produces and discount them. So I use a discounted cash flow system to discount the cash flow gods and finally I go and look at the market comparables so that in this way I have the market that gives me a system. This in the traditional world. In the crypto world, I have none of this because I don't have the cost of production, because issuing a token on Solana costs a few cents.

Well, I could say that I could evaluate the mining cost of Bitcoin , but we know very well that it has no correlation with the value, with the price of Bitcoin. The income approach doesn't have cash flows on cryptocurrencies because I only have them when I sell them. I don't have a market approach because it's true that we have markets, and today they're becoming regulated markets, but on many cryptocurrencies, especially on real-world assets, on many issues, the markets are not liquid, and therefore that value is neither significant nor relevant. So this is an entire part that absolutely needs to be built because in accounting you record the cost and then you make the evaluations at the end of the year to see if there are any honorable losses of values, presumed realizable value, therefore that fair value to be able to devalue it but not revalue it because obviously the profits are only recorded when realized. Indeed, Consum and the Bank of Italy, on this very topic, issued a call for attention on March 6, 2025, urging attention to valuation, information transparency, the risk of significant errors, and compliance with anti-money laundering regulations.

Obviously, when I have it in my accounting, the typical transactions, so at least to go a little more practical, as a good accountant, eh in the case of a purchase with euros it is recorded at cost, in the case of a crypto client, so I sold eh an asset and I collect cryogenics. I will have a double event, I will have, excuse me, the revenue at normal value at the taxable date and the asset enters at that cost. If I pay a supplier in crypto, I get a double wind because I have the cost for the good or service I bought and I realize on the asset which is the plus or minus compared to the value with which I had registered that crypto asset. sale, conversion, I will have the capital gain or loss upon realization and the end-of-year valuations for article 110.3 bis of the TUIR are totally fiscally irrelevant, therefore any devaluations and revaluations are not of interest.

Obviously, when there is a company from a global point of view, the CFO must have a structured cast, a segregation of duties because whoever disposes does not approve or reconcile, written accounting policies, periodic reconciliation, a complete audit trail because obviously then I will have auditors, verifiers who will want to go and see this and involve the auditors from the beginning. I'll skip this one. And so the CFO needs to choose the right asset, write the accounting policies, and then plan the VAT with the product and manage it like a bank. I'm a few minutes overdue, so I apologize, but I hope this has fixed the technical issues.