The nest egg, stablecoin version. More and more French people have withdrawn their stablecoins from the platforms to keep them in their own wallets while the ten-year OAT panicked the bond markets. The Chainalysis report on Western Europe published on November 9 puts the movement at +192% for treasury balances in France.
The amounts remain tiny compared to traditional savings. However, French bank deposits only increased by 2% over the same period. Chainalysis already published its global ranking of crypto adoption in September 2025. This time, France takes the lead in an indicator that few people were monitoring.
Key Points
Crypto activity in Western Europe grew slightly despite a global market halving.
Regional holdings of stablecoins have more than doubled over a year.
French personal wallets loaded with stablecoins have increased by 3.4 times.
Italians and Portuguese are sending more and more funds to Spanish exchanges.
Western Europe's crypto economy resists the bear market
Between July 2025 and June 2026, the total capitalization of the crypto market halved. Western Europe still posted growth of 1.2% in its activity, to $2.08 trillion. Only sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America did better, according to the Chainalysis report.
The United Kingdom remains the region's largest market with $424.5 billion, or 20% of the total. But it fell by 8%, weighed down by the fall 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 standing still. The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland close the top 6, which concentrates two thirds of regional activity.
Chainalysis advances the MiCA track to explain the gap between the UK and the EU. Providers approved under the European Crypto-Asset Regulation (MiCA) can operate in all 27 member states with a single license. The deadline of July 2026 also pushed latecomers to complete their files. The United Kingdom, for its part, was waiting for its financial regulator (FCA) to open its own authorization window in September.
Stablecoins in France: self-ownership follows the OAT curve
Stablecoin holdings in personal wallets jumped 131% across the region, compared to 52% globally. Western Europe's share of global sales increases from 3.4% to 5.1%. Austria and France recorded the largest increases.
In France, the number of personal wallets holding stablecoins increased from 3,577 in June 2025 to 12,255 a year later. The rest of Western Europe was satisfied with a factor of 1.7. Stablecoins now account for 54.2% of withdrawals made by French people from centralized platforms. France ranked tenth regionally on this indicator in 2023. It will occupy first place in 2026, ahead of Germany.
The timetable matches that of the debt. The monthly growth of French wallets increased from around 6% in mid-2025 to 18% at the end of the year, just after the bout of bond fever in the fall. It fell to 5% in June 2026, when the markets calmed down.
Chainalysis identifies a similar mechanism at the scale of the euro zone. When European sovereign rates rise compared to American rates, exchanges of bitcoin and tokenized gold denominated in euros progress compared to those in dollars: around +7.5% for a difference of 2 basis points, +12% for 7 basis points.
Keep a cool head. The figure of 12,255 wallets remains a niche in a country of 68 million inhabitants. And the firm recognizes that its data does not prove any direct link between Bercy's budgetary setbacks and these arbitrations.
MiCA gives wings to the euro and Spanish exchanges
The Euro represented 11.8% of crypto volumes traded against the 33 major fiat currencies at the end of the period studied. Chainalysis compares this figure to a benchmark of 14.5% taken from foreign exchange data from the Bank for International Settlements. The gap has narrowed since the entry into force of MiCA.
The ECB is already monitoring what happens next. In September, it asked national central banks to review the obligation for stablecoin issuers to deposit 30% of their reserves in European banks (60% for the largest). Central banks fear that a wave of redemptions will empty these deposits all at once.
The European passport mainly benefits Spain. Flows from other Western European countries to platforms registered in the country increased by 79.1%, three times faster than the Spanish crypto economy (+24.6%). Portuguese shipments have increased by more than eight, Italians by more than four. Gabriel Ayala, director of API and banking at Bit2Me, attributes this success to the absence of large local players in these two countries.
