The French Public Investment Bank Injects $27 Million Into Crypto

Bpifrance announced a strategic investment of 25 million euros to support blockchain projects with a “strong French footprint“. This initiative aims to strengthen France’s position in the rapidly expanding global crypto industry.

France wants to become a crypto leader in Europe thanks to Bpifrance

The Public Investment Bank (Bpifrance) announced on March 27 an investment of 25 million euros to acquire cryptos supporting local blockchain projects.

This initiative, approved by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, specifically targets projects “with a strong French footprint” where Bpifrance will receive tokens in return for its funding.

According to the official statement, the plan aims to “promote emerging technologies and strengthen the French blockchain ecosystem“.

Four strategic sectors are priorities:

• Decentralized finance (DeFi)
• Staking
• Tokenization
• Artificial Intelligence

Arnaud Caudoux, Deputy General Director of Bpifrance, emphasized the importance of this positioning in light of the American acceleration in the crypto field, stating that France had anticipated this trend even before the United States.

A long-standing commitment that is intensifying

The public bank is not new to the blockchain sector. It claims to have supported this ecosystem for a decade, with more than 150 million euros already invested, notably in the financing of Ledger, a famous French hardware wallet company, since 2014.

Since 2022, Bpifrance has been experimenting with limited investments via tokens, as evidenced by its agreement with the DeFi lending platform Morpho. This protocol is now ranked 12th globally with a value of 3.24 billion dollars according to DefiLlama.

Clara Chappaz, the French Minister for Digital and AI, stated that the combination of public and private funding represents “one of the keys to the sustainable positioning of our ecosystem on the international stage “.

Bpifrance’s initiative is part of a broader movement of crypto adoption by French institutions. Recently, The Blockchain Group, a company listed on Euronext Paris, acquired 580 bitcoins for 47 million euros, thus becoming the first “Bitcoin Treasury Company “ in Europe.