French Execs Call For Direct Tax On Crypto To Stablecoin Trades

Executives at several crypto-focused companies in France have urged the government to treat conversions between volatile digital assets and stablecoins as taxable events. The proposal comes from Jean Meyer of the payments firm Deblock, Damien Patureaux of Lyzi, and Pierre Morizot of the tax-reporting software company Waltio.

They set out the argument in an opinion piece in Le Monde, framed around the risk that France could miss an emerging wave of automated, agent-driven commerce settled largely in dollar- or euro-pegged tokens.

Under the rules adopted in 2019, swapping one cryptocurrency for another, including a move from bitcoin or ether into a regulated euro stablecoin, does not itself create a tax liability.

The charge arises only when the holder later converts into euros or spends the tokens on goods and services.

The executives argue that this deferral has become a liability rather than an advantage.

Holders tend to keep balances in stablecoins instead of moving them into the banking system, which they say leaves potential receipts unrealized and slows the build-out of domestic payment infrastructure.

Industry estimates cited in their piece put a large share of digital-asset trading volume through stablecoins and suggest an annual budget shortfall in the low billions of euros.