France’s state-owned bank says it will spend 25 million euros ($27 million) buying cryptocurrencies that support local crypto and blockchain projects.

Bpifrance said in a March 27 press release that it would back newly formed projects “with a strong French footprint” where it will receive tokens in return for its investment and will look to fund decentralized finance (DeFi), staking, tokenization and artificial intelligence.

It added that the plan, supported by the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, was to “promote emerging technologies and strengthen the French blockchain ecosystem.”

The global blockchain ecosystem is “currently booming” but the number of French funds taking part is still very limited, it said.

French digital and AI minister Clara Chappaz said public and private financing was “one of the keys to the sustainable positioning of our ecosystem on the international stage.”

Bpifrance deputy CEO Arnaud Caudoux said that it was convinced of the growing importance that blockchain companies “will take on in the years to come and want to increase French competitiveness and presence in the digital assets field.”

“The US is really accelerating its own crypto strategy, so this is all the more important,” Caudoux said at a press conference, as reported by Reuters. He added that Bpifrance had started to support crypto before the US started its own pro-crypto moves.

Bpifrance’s headquarters in Paris. Source: Google

The bank said it had backed the blockchain sector for a decade and had invested over 150 million euros ($162 million), notably helping to finance the crypto hardware wallet company Ledger in 2014.

Bpifrance said it began testing limited investments through tokens in 2022, including a deal with the DeFi lending platform Morpho to buy its token — which has grown to be the 12th largest protocol by value at $3.24 billion, according to DefiLlama.

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Venture capitalists often take part in investments paid in tokens. PitchBook expects crypto VC deals to top $18 billion this year, a marked increase from the $13.6 billion raised in 2024.

Typically, a crypto platform that launches a token will allocate a portion of its supply to financiers subject to varying lockup periods where the tokens can’t be sold.

A portion of the token supply is usually immediately given to select public users in order to drum up liquidity, which can cause token values to slide if they cash out.

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