FRANCE INCREASINGLY OPEN TO DIGITAL SECTOR

France will revise its tax rules on cryptocurrencies next year in an effort to continue its neuralgic role in the blockchain sector, and it will not do so by faithfully replicating what is planned in the equities sector. This was stated by Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.

Slightly contradictory are the words of the French minister about the digital sector, who, on the one hand, claims to be concerned about the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies and the potential for blockchain technology to usurp the role of France’s fiat currency, the euro, but on the other hand wants France to play an increasingly strategic role in Europe such that he declared:

“We want France to be the European hub of the cryptocurrency ecosystem,” and about the Old Continent so expressed: “We want the European Union to become the first economic zone in the world for the structuring and organization of the cryptocurrency market.”

In this sense, the recent approvals by France to the operation of the digital business (SG Forge, the digital asset division of Société Générale, registered as a provider of digital asset services) should be highlighted.

Let us also recall-to further credit the extreme openness attitude of the political leadership about the digital sector-France’s key role in the experiments about the European CDBC, with the first phase of the digital euro study just completed and the second to begin this year.

About taxation, Le Maire is stalling:

“We want to use the year 2023 to deepen our reflection with stakeholders in order to identify whether new adjustments to tax legislation are needed,” and stresses that there is no need to use what is already in place for the financial sector: “A direct alignment with share taxation is not necessarily a desirable goal.”

These words are absolutely consistent with making Paris the most important tech startup incubator in Europe (the country has sought to foster tech startups by adopting very favorable regulations) with 160 blockchain startups and $175.4 million raised.

Le Maire complimented the Ethreum developers on its move to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that uses much less energy.

But he is not willing to see major currencies like bitcoin (BTC) take over from government currencies, nor will he let citizens pay taxes using cryptocurrencies, as has been proposed in Colorado.