Italian investigators have uncovered a years-long tax fraud scheme involving Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, among the first significant law enforcement cases involving these new types of Bitcoin assets. The alleged criminal appears to have profited from more than €1 million (about $1.1 million) from his illegal activities, in addition to fraudulently applying for and receiving public support for which he was not eligible.
The case, revealed through a blockchain analysis conducted by the Italian Guardia di Finanza, shows the power of these technologies in solving the technical challenges posed by the Ordinals.
Italy’s Guardia di Finanza targets evasion supported by the Ordinals
the investigation It was led by the Economic and Financial Police Unit of Foggia, in cooperation with the Special Unit for the Protection of Privacy and Technological Fraud in Rome. A hardware wallet called “Ledger” was seized during one of the home searches, marking the start of the investigation.
Although the wallet created new addresses for each transaction — a common privacy technique — ownership analysis revealed that all of those separate addresses were owned by a single owner.
The core of the scheme lies in a four-step process using the Ordinals protocol, which was launched in 2023. The first step would be to move the Satoshi from the accused person’s main wallet pool to an engraving service outside the system and then write any type of data into the witness field. Bitcoin Transactions and creation of non-fungible arrangements.
In addition, the subject conducted the minting and exchange of BRC-20 tokens – an innovative token standard for fungible tokens on the Bitcoin network, based entirely on inscriptions without smart contracts.
After registering these inscriptions, they can be exchanged on Ordinals’ platforms at a significant profit. Funds from Bitcoin sales will then be deposited into the main wallet pool and immediately used to fund additional registrations. The closed system enabled a person to make large, undisclosed profits while continuing to receive public funding.
Chain analysis traceability challenges the myths of cryptocurrency anonymity
To conduct their investigation, Guardia di Finanza chose to use Chaina Analysis Reactor, which enabled them to create a visualization and unravel the complex network of transactions. The tool helped turn what was originally a jumbled series of random Bitcoin transactions into a recognizable “pattern monetization cycle.”
Based on their analysis, they were able to determine the extent of evasion at more than one million euros.
This is what stood out in the analysis – despite the introduction of new ways of storing data such as Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, the current Bitcoin UTXO structure still enables full traceability of all on-chain activity. From the process of paying for registration to exiting the network, everything was traceable.
Bitcoin markets are experiencing volatility ahead of the weekend
Bitcoin (BTC) still dominates the cryptocurrency industry, trading at about $77,158 per coin and with a market cap of $1.54 trillion. This represents about 58-60% of the total cryptocurrency market, which ranges between $2.57 and $2.65 trillion.
Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin showed little volatility, ranging from $76,655 to a high of $78,100, with a gain of 0.69%. Good liquidity is evident in daily spot trading volumes of more than $26.7 billion.
Q4 2026 estimates range between $74,000 and $115,000 based on liquidity and risk appetite, according to Cryptopolitan. Bitcoin dominance has been stable, showing that little capital is moving to altcoins. Thanks to institutional tools and regulatory progress, the infrastructure will remain intact in the future.
Bitcoin ordinal The market is currently considered very slow (May 21, 2026), with not many transactions taking place recently, but with the overall market capitalization remaining stable in the mid-nine-figure range. The combined market cap of all Bitcoin-based tracked NFTs is approximately $115 million – $117 million USD.
Trading volume in the last 24 hours is very low – Data from major tracking sites shows 0 or nearly 0 in the last 24 hours, indicating that liquidity is very poor compared to high times like 2023-2024.
