From 10th to 1st place in three years: how France became European champion of stablecoin transfers because of “tax uncertainty”

France is doing quite well when it comes to cryptos. It is Europe's third largest crypto market, worth $216 billion, behind Germany ($289 billion) and the United Kingdom ($425 billion). But there is one sector in which France is taking a considerable lead: stablecoins.

As a reminder, a stablecoin (or stable cryptocurrency) is a cryptocurrency backed by a fiat currency such as the euro or the dollar. These cryptos are increasingly used to make fast payments and transfers at a lower cost, avoiding market fluctuations. Today, dollar-backed stablecoins dominate the market, notably USDC and USDT, while euro-backed ones are slowly emerging.

“In a context of budgetary tensions, the number of French personal wallets holding stablecoins increased 3.4-fold between June 2025 and June 2026, and their balances increased by 192%,” underlines a Chainalysis study published this Monday, November 9. Specifically, personal crypto wallets holding stablecoins increased from 3,577 in June 2025 to 12.

255 in June 2026. From 10th to 1st place Between 2023 and 2026, France went from 10th to 1st place among Western European countries in terms of transferring stablecoins from a crypto exchange to a personal crypto wallet. The value transferred from platforms to France increased by 12%, compared to 7% in the rest of Western Europe according to the study.

“The amounts still remain modest compared to traditional savings, but the pace of progression is notable: in a context of tax uncertainty, more and more French people seem to be choosing to hold and manage their funds directly,” declares François Volpoët, Managing Director France of Chainalysis. As a reminder, personal crypto wallets (or self-hosted accounts) allow you to keep a user's private key (cryptocurrencies) outside the network (computer, telephone). Their use is legal and the amount of cryptos held is solely a concern of their owners.

These are technological tools (such as a digital safe) that allow you to store your cryptocurrencies without an intermediary. This type of storage method is opposed to traditional crypto exchanges (like Binance or Coinbase), which itself holds its users' cryptocurrencies. One of the latest scenarios concerns the Binance France exchange which will close its doors by the end of the year as we reported yesterday.

If users do not recover their cryptos in a timely manner, the company may decide to convert them or even seize them.

Machine-translated from French