Will crypto exchanges/stablecoins soon be taxed in France?

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2 Oct 2026Marc-Antoine Caen Poletti

An opinion piece signed by three payment and tax actors

On May 18, 2026, three leaders of the French crypto industry signed an opinion piece in Le Monde, titled "France has six months to not miss the next industrial wave of agentic AI." The signatories are Jean Meyer (Deblock), Damien Patureau (Lyzi), and Pierre Morizot (Waltio). Two are payment actors, and one is a tax declaration software publisher.

Under this title, there is little discussion of artificial intelligence. The text focuses on the taxation of exchanges between cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. "A French holder who converts their bitcoins into [stablecoin] triggers no taxation," the authors write. "This is not a competitive advantage. It is a fiscal singularity that costs in lost revenue and unbuilt infrastructure."

The signatories also target the calculation of capital gains, which is based on the total value of the portfolio. To spend 10 euros of bitcoin, a user must consider the overall value of their portfolio and its total acquisition cost to isolate the portion of profit subject to the flat tax. This rule primarily burdens those whose job is to accept payments in crypto.

A general or individual interest?

According to them, this complexity hinders the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. When interviewed by Cryptoast, the three leaders advocate for a reform of general interest. Each also speaks from their own market perspective.

Damien Patureau, head of Lyzi, sees the problem from the perspective of stores. His solution allows for the acceptance of payments in cryptocurrencies and stablecoins at more than one million points of sale in France and Europe, including Citadium, Beaugrenelle, and Printemps. "When paying in crypto, customers ask merchants many questions about taxation," he explains. "We end up providing customer service for the merchant's client instead of making sales."

Pierre Morizot, CEO of Waltio, sells software for calculating and declaring capital gains. For him, "the non-taxation of crypto/stablecoin transactions is a sword of Damocles" hanging over businesses. He wishes to take inspiration from the UK, where Finance Bill 26-27 could treat stablecoins as full currencies, thus taxing the crypto/stablecoin transition. This would lead to many new operations to declare for individuals. Another advantage in his eyes: returns on stablecoins would be considered savings interest rather than capital gains.

"Some acknowledge that taxing crypto/stablecoin transactions would be good for their business, but that it would personally bother them. Me too," admits Jean Meyer, CEO of Deblock. "But we will go there, no matter what," he predicts, invoking the direction of global regulation.

The man thus proposes a deal to Bercy: abandon the weighted capital gains calculation on the entire portfolio, "in exchange for taxing crypto/stablecoin transactions while maintaining the exemption on crypto/crypto pairs." The founder of this payment company would thus like to shift the tax complexity to the level of users and exchange platforms. A deal that does not convince the rest of the ecosystem.

An isolated vision in the crypto ecosystem

At the Association for the Development of Digital Assets (Adan), the line is the opposite. "You cannot pay your taxes in crypto, whether it is bitcoin or stablecoins: they are paid in euros," states Claire Balva, its general director. "Therefore, it is at the moment of conversion to fiat currency that taxation should occur."

Taxing the crypto/stablecoin transition would mainly have a perverse effect, according to her: "If converting ETH to EURC triggers taxation, the user will have every interest in converting it instead to USDT to avoid it." She continues: "This is precisely the opposite of the goal: we want to promote stablecoins in euros and, more broadly, regulated stablecoins."

Faustine Fleuret, head of public affairs at Morpho and former general director of Adan, reminds that this exemption is the only advantage of French crypto taxation. "All topics that are opened to touch on crypto taxation are never positive for the sector or for investors," she laments. However, she concedes one point to the signatories: since European and American regulations have brought stablecoins closer to electronic money, the exemption for crypto/stablecoin exchanges has become difficult to defend technically.

Not giving in without compensation

On the political front, however, there is no question of giving in without compensation. "If a discussion is to open in the next budget debate starting in a few weeks, to challenge this meager fiscal gain we have in France, what can we have in return that is beneficial for the sector?"

It remains to be seen whether the debate will take place. "To our knowledge, no modification of the crypto tax regime is planned in the government's project," indicates Claire Balva, without excluding parliamentary amendments. As for the initiative of the three signatories, its response is diplomatic, but the word is out: "Actors remain free to follow their individual interests, but we naturally encourage them to coordinate with the rest of the industry to find compromises and support consensus measures in the sector."

Sources: Le Monde