Italy's economy minister on Thursday defended his decision to raise taxes on cryptocurrency capital gains as part of next year's budget, despite pressure from some lawmakers in his own party to backtrack. Giancarlo Giorgetti said savers should make a distinction between investments that finance tangible projects and cryptocurrencies, whose value he said is completely disconnected from underlying assets. "Cryptocurrencies present a very high level of risk," Giorgetti said in a speech at a banking conference in Rome.