France

The COVID-19 pandemic and global economic crisis triggered the increase in illegal activity related to cryptocurrency. However, law enforcers also keep themselves busy to fight the growth and put as many criminals behind bars as possible.

On March 13, Bitcoin price crashed again reaching one of its lows of $4,563. The price fell by more than 38% in just 24 hours.

The commercial court of Nanterre recognizes that Bitcoin is "a fungible and consumable intangible asset", which brings it closer to the above-board definition of fiat money. This is the first time cryptocurrency is acknowledged in France.

Making a digital payment, e.g. using cryptocurrency is still, for many Italians, an operation that could potentially be a security risk. To highlight it is a study conducted by Luno, a company specialized in cryptocurrencies, through the Dalia Research platform on a sample of a thousand people for each of the countries taken into consideration are Italy, France, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Nigeria and South Africa.

For over two years now, there has been an ongoing fight between the courts of different countries over the case involving founder of BTC-e Alexander Vinnik from Russia, suspected to have illegally stolen huge sums of Bitcoin (in billions) by Mark Karpeles, the French founder of the collapsed Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox. Now, the case looks to be reaching its end.

Leaders from the seven most powerful world economies want to fully explore Bitcoin to its maximum potential. The G7 recently released a report on cryptocurrency investigating the effects of global stable coins. The G7 which includes the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, France, and Canada also has leading hubs for cryptocurrency and blockchain projects.

Recently, French financial authorities have shared major concerns about new cryptocurrencies being introduced onto the market. France is planning to block the development of Facebook’s cryptocurrency known as Libra claiming that the token will bring a huge risk to monetary sovereignty in the country and Europe at large.

The banking industry is worried by Facebook’s announcement about issuing their own cryptocurrency last month. France is going to establish a G7 task force to study how banks can ensure regulations of such digital currency to  prevent its usage for money laundering and other illegal activities.

The famous Cathedral in France was heavily damaged by fire on Monday. As a result of the fire, the roof collapsed and the spire of the building fell. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has promised to restore Notre Dame de Paris. French billionaires, large corporations as well as bitcoin philanthropists have made donations for restoring the building.