French state bank Bpifrance plans €25 million crypto fund to invest directly in digital assets, support French companies

State-owned French public investment bank Bpifrance (Banque Publique d'Investissement) announced the acceleration of its crypto investment strategy, outlining plans to invest up to €25 million ($27 million) in digital assets to support French companies and venture capitalists in the industry.

Bpifrance described the initiative as "pioneering among sovereign wealth funds on a global scale," supported by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, according to a translation of a statement from the bank on Thursday.

Bpifrance will directly invest in new blockchain-linked business models with a strong French presence, including decentralized finance, decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs), tokenization, staking and restaking, Layer 1, 2 and 3 chains, artificial intelligence and identity verification, receiving tokens rather than equity. These investments will be in addition to innovation grants, loans and equity investments from Bpifrance Digital Venture, Large Venture and French Touch Capital funds, it said.

The public investment bank added that being able to invest directly in digital assets marks a significant advancement for Bpifrance. It will allow it to hold tokens listed on decentralized financial markets and enhance its expertise in asset tokenization and liquidity management via blockchain technology.

"With the acceleration of its token investment strategy, Bpifrance reaffirms its commitment and strengthens its support for the development of French players in the digital asset economy operating within the European regulatory framework," Bpifrance Deputy CEO Arnaud Caudoux said. "We are convinced of the growing importance of these players in the coming years and want to increase the competitiveness and French presence in the digital asset field."

In a separate press briefing, Caudoux explained the ability to make direct token investments became "much more urgent" in light of the United States' accelerating crypto strategy, Bloomberg reported , with France keen not to be left behind.

"The new U.S. policy is creating massive attractivity for all crypto companies from across the world," Caudoux said. "We want to keep those companies here because we strongly believe that it's very important in the future to have our own ecosystem."

Pro-crypto President Trump has announced a slew of proposals in recent months designed to make America the "crypto capital of the world." Trump signed an executive order on March 6 to create a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Assets Stockpile and is also pushing for the approval of stablecoin and crypto market structure bills in Congress

Making France a 'center of excellence' for digital asset technology

Bpifrance's initiative signals the government's desire to make France a "center of excellence" for digital asset technologies, according to Minister Delegate for AI and Digital, Clara Chappaz.

"We are taking another step to enable our national champions to scale in a sector where competition is intense: the involvement of both public and private financiers is key to positioning our ecosystem sustainably on the international stage," she said.

Over the last decade, Bpifrance has become a key player in France's blockchain ecosystem, investing over €150 million ($162 million) in blockchain projects and supporting 200 French startups. It has backed companies like ACINQ, Dfns, Flowdesk and Arianee and invested in several blockchain-focused funds, including White Star Capital Digital Asset Fund, Cygni Capital, Sparkle Ventures and Ledger Cathay Fund. 

Notably, it has also participated in the financing of the popular crypto hardware manufacturer Ledger since 2014.

Bpifrance launched its digital asset investment strategy in 2022, making pilot investments in Aleph.im tokens and the DeFi protocol Morpho. However, despite the global growth of the blockchain ecosystem, France still has a limited number of digital asset funds, it noted.