After Bangladesh and Romania, France becomes the next country to have an institution recognized as a Bitcoin Foundation’s chapter afilliate. The Association Bitcoin France, headed by Philippe Rodriguez, is now an official member of the foundation’s project.
“France is a country where liberty ranks high as a top value, making the country fertile ground for innovative services and companies using the Bitcoin protocol”, said Jon Matonis, executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Besides the Association Bitcoin France, the country – more specifically the capital Paris – is also home to a Bitcoin embassy and to the cryptocurrency startup incubator known as La Maison du Bitcoin.
After the announcement, Philippe Rodriguez revealed he was delighted to see the Association Bitcoin France “joining forces with the Bitcoin Foundation to promote the Bitcoin protocol and educate policy-makers in France“.
We deeply believe that Bitcoin has the potential to disrupt not only part of the financial system as we know it, but, down the road, other markets where trust in a central organization is the current status quo,
France currently has the fourth largest number of active Bitcoin nodes (only surpassed by the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany), according to information provided by Bitnodes and quoted by CryptoCoinsNews.
Besides, the French government is looking to regulate and expand the local cryptocurrency ecosystem and market. Michael Spain, France’s Minister of Finance, has stated that the government believes “that France should let people try, invest and develop business with Bitcoin before we tax it”.
Regarding the regulation, it would be “halfway between the strictest regulations [from] China, Japan or Russia or the lightest regulations adopted by countries such as the United States, Canada or Israel”.
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