Stablecoins: French People Stock Up on Self-Custody According to Chainalysis

The savings account, stablecoin version. More and more French people have withdrawn their stablecoins from platforms to keep them in their own wallets while the ten-year OAT shocked the bond markets. The Chainalysis report on Western Europe published on November 9 estimates the movement at +192% for self-custody balances in France.

The amounts remain tiny compared to traditional savings. French bank deposits, however, have only increased by 2% during the same period. Chainalysis had already published its global ranking of crypto adoption in September 2025. This time, France takes the lead in an indicator that few were monitoring.

Key Points

• Crypto activity in Western Europe has slightly increased despite a global market halved.
• Regional holdings in stablecoins have more than doubled over the year.
• French personal wallets loaded with stablecoins have multiplied by 3.4.
• Italians and Portuguese are increasingly sending funds to Spanish exchanges.

The Crypto Economy of Western Europe Resists the Bear Market

Between July 2025 and June 2026, the total market capitalization of crypto halved. Western Europe still showed a growth of 1.2% in its activity, reaching $2.08 trillion. Only Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America performed better, according to the Chainalysis report.

The United Kingdom remains the largest market in the region with $424.5 billion, accounting for 20% of the total. However, it has declined by 8%, weighed down by the drop in its activity on decentralized exchanges (DEX). The European Union gained 2.2%.

Behind the British, Germany ($288.8 billion) and France ($215.8 billion) complete the podium. The French market is stagnant. The Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland round out the top 6, which concentrates two-thirds of regional activity.

Chainalysis suggests the MiCA framework to explain the gap between the UK and the EU. Licensed providers under the European regulation on crypto-assets (MiCA) can operate in the 27 member states with a single license. The deadline of July 2026 has also pushed laggards to finalize their applications. The UK, on its part, was waiting for its financial regulator (FCA) to open its own licensing window in September.

Stablecoins in France: Self-Custody Follows the OAT Curve

Holdings in stablecoins in personal wallets surged by 131% across the region, compared to 52% globally. The share of Western Europe in global balances increased from 3.4% to 5.1%. Austria and France recorded the highest increases.

In France, the number of personal wallets holding stablecoins rose from 3,577 in June 2025 to 12,255 a year later. The rest of Western Europe managed only a factor of 1.7. Stablecoins now account for 54.2% of withdrawals made by the French from centralized platforms. France ranked tenth regionally on this indicator in 2023. It occupies the first place in 2026, ahead of Germany.

The timeline aligns with that of the debt. The monthly growth of French wallets increased from about 6% in mid-2025 to 18% by the end of the year, just after the bond fever spike in the autumn. It fell back to 5% in June 2026 when the markets calmed down.

Chainalysis identifies a similar mechanism at the eurozone level. When European sovereign rates rise against American rates, the exchanges of bitcoin and tokenized gold denominated in euros increase compared to those in dollars: about +7.5% for a 2 basis point gap, +12% for 7 basis points.

Stay cool. The figure of 12,255 wallets remains a niche in a country of 68 million inhabitants. And the firm acknowledges that its data do not prove any direct link between Bercy's budgetary troubles and these arbitrages.

MiCA Gives Wings to the Euro and Spanish Exchanges

The euro accounted for 11.8% of crypto volumes exchanged against the 33 main fiat currencies at the end of the studied period. Chainalysis compares this figure to a benchmark of 14.5% drawn from the exchange data of the Bank for International Settlements. The gap has narrowed since the implementation of MiCA.

The ECB is already monitoring the aftermath. In September, it asked with national central banks to review the requirement for stablecoin issuers to deposit 30% of their reserves in European banks (60% for the largest). Central banks fear that a wave of redemptions could empty these deposits all at once.

The European passport particularly benefits Spain. Flows from other Western European countries to registered platforms in the country surged by 79.1%, three times faster than the Spanish crypto economy (+24.6%). Portuguese remittances increased more than eightfold, while Italian ones increased more than fourfold. Gabriel Ayala, API and banking director at Bit2Me, attributes this success to the absence of major local players in these two countries.

The report ends in June 2026, before the October spike that pushed the ten-year OAT rate above 5.14%, a twenty-year high. The French who switched to stablecoins will also have to reckon with the tax authorities: an amendment to the 2027 budget submitted in October by MP Nicolas Sansu proposed to make any conversion from crypto to a stablecoin regulated by MiCA taxable starting January 1, 2027.

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