Crypto adoption: 12% of French people say they hold cryptos

19.03.2024
Crypto adoption: 12% of French people say they hold cryptos
Ask AI TO SUMMARIZE ThIS ARTICLE

France is the only country in Europe where adoption accelerated in 2023. Young people are increasingly represented.

Your 2 free articles this month are up

The research your peers are already leveraging

The Big Whale gives financial institutions the market intelligence, network, and platform to move with confidence in digital assets. Trusted by 150+ firms.

Slowly but surely, cryptos continue to gain ground in France. According to the third edition of the study by the Association for the Development of Digital Assets (Adan), the Ipsos polling institute and KPMG, 12% of French people said they held crypto-assets in 2023. An increase of almost 30% compared with the previous year.

Bitcoin remains by far the most represented asset, with 64% of French people declaring that they held them, compared with 49% last year.

The study was carried out among a sample of 2001 people aged 18 and over in December 2023.

In November, a European study carried out by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and commissioned by the French regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers, estimated that now more French people had invested in crypto (9.4%) than in listed equities (7.3%).

Younger holders

Adan's 2024 study estimates that the French have invested between €32.5 billion and €42.5 billion in cryptocurrencies, up 60% on the previous year, with an average exposure of between €4,650 and €6,000. A stable range compared with last year.

Among the motivations, 46% of investors say they are looking for financial returns while 34.4% see cryptocurrencies as a safe haven. The latter figure is up slightly on last year (30%). In December, a survey that The Big Whale carried out with YouGov showed that almost one in five French people said they wanted to invest in cryptos to protect themselves from inflation and get better returns than with traditional assets.Another notable figure: crypto holders are also younger. 57% are under 35, compared with 50% the previous year.

France is catching up slightly with its neighbours

According to the survey data, France is the only country in Europe where adoption is accelerating. However, France is still lagging behind the Netherlands, where 17% of people say they hold crypto-assets, and the UK (16%). France is on a par with the Germans.

Format
News
Louis Tellier

Louis Tellier is Lead Institutional Research at Blockstories, where he focuses on developing the institutional offering for digital assets. He joined Blockstories in April 2025. Blockstories was founded in 2022 and is headquartered in Berlin, with presence in France and Switzerland.

Prior to joining Blockstories, Tellier worked as a crypto journalist at The Big Whale from August 2023 to January 2025, covering crypto and blockchain topics. Before that, he was a journalist at L'AGEFI from May 2022 to July 2023, specialising in cryptocurrencies. Earlier in his career, he worked as a web and video journalist at BFM Business and as a video journalist at Le Figaro. He also taught journalism at IICP in Paris for three and a half years, with a focus on web video journalism. Tellier is a graduate of Sciences Po Grenoble and the University of Lille.

See all articles ↗
Subscribe to The Drop
The leading weekly briefing on digital assets for financial institutions: independent analysis, reports, benchmarks and exclusive events, delivered to your inbox.
Read by 30,000 professionals
November 12–13, 2026

The Geneva Summit

The Corporate Gateway: where the future of onchain finance is decided. 300 handpicked decision-makers. One shared mandate.
300
Decision-makers
2 days
Intensive program