Mere days before the second round of the fateful presidential election in France, the incumbent president of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, sat down with local media to share his thoughts on the digital economy — a subject on which he hasn't spoken much previously. While emphasizing the importance of the sector, Macron once again reiterated his support for the pan-European approach to financial technology regulation. The interview with French publication The Big Wale came on Friday, two days before the runoff that will see Macron face the right-wing populist Marine Le Pen. According to most polls, Macron is likely to …

This article is updated all day long. All time codes are in the UTC time zone, updates in reverse order (the latest update is placed at the top). Check the first-day coverage here. Paris Blockchain Week Summit (PBWS) hosts multiple thought leaders from the crypto and blockchain universe on its second day, and the Cointelegraph ground team is at the venue to deliver the most recent developments from the event. Paris NFT Day, the prequel event to the PBWS, saw the announcement of Cointelegraph France. On Wednesday, the Cointelegraph team delivered the important tidbits from sessions, as well as quotes …

Cointelegraph is delighted to announce the launch of its French edition, Cointelegraph France, providing the latest cryptocurrency and blockchain news en français and marking another historic milestone in the publication’s global presence. Founded in 2013, Cointelegraph is the leading independent cryptocurrency and blockchain-focused publication covering news about blockchain, cryptocurrencies, nonfungible tokens (NFT), metaverse, decentralized finance and other emerging fintech trends. Apart from the main edition in English, Cointelegraph maintains 10 local versions, operating editions in multiple languages, including Arabic, Spanish, German, Italian, Turkish, Chinese, Korean and Portuguese, managed by Cointelegraph VP of Global Operations Elijah Leyb. The new French edition …

Nearly 150 million people use the franc of the Financial Community of Africa (CFA) on a daily basis, from Senegal in the extreme west to Gabon in the center of the continent. Used in 14 countries, the CFA is pegged to the euro, printed in France and its monetary policy is controlled by Western powers. As Fodé Diop, a Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning developer hailing from Senegal details, “the IMF and the French government still control the currency.” While the official peg to the euro is 1 euro to 655.96 CFA francs, its purchasing power has eroded over time. In 1994, …

Jimmy Chambrade and Aurore Galves Orjol, co-founders of Bitcoin-lyon, first heard about Bitcoin (BTC) in 2014. Around that time, their close friend and now business partner, Bruce, mined Bitcoin using his laptop. However, it took three years and a face-melting bull run before the pair could set aside the time to engage with the technology. Fast forward to 2017, and Chambrade and Galves Orjol had just returned from an around-the-world trip. Although ready to return to the world of work, they would rather avoid the traditional “nine-to-five” fiat lifestyle, or the “métro, boulot, dodo” (subway, work, sleep) routine as it’s …

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are constantly in the news. NFT platforms are springing up like mushrooms and champions are emerging, such as OpenSea. It is a real platform economy that is emerging, like those in which YouTube or Booking.com gained a foothold. But it is a very young economy — one that is struggling to understand the legal issues that apply to it. Regulators are starting to take an interest in the subject, and there is risk of a backlash if the industry does not regulate itself quickly. And, as always, the first blows are expected east of the Atlantic. In …

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is seeking stakeholder input on the use of distributed ledger technology for securities trading and settlements. The European Union's securities regulator recently published a “call for evidence” to invite stakeholders to share their feedback on the regulations for regulatory technical standards (RTS) on reporting and transparency on the DLT pilot expected to be implemented next year. Some of the main functions of ESMA include strengthening the protection for EU investors, enhancing financial markets, and fostering cooperation between members. With the call for evidence, the EU regulator’s objective is to see whether regulatory standards …

Earlier this year, gaming giant Ubisoft joined the aleph.im network as a core channel node operator after the blockchain-based storage and computing startup became a part of Ubisoft’s Entrepreneurs Lab. On Tuesday, aleph.im announced that it will offer a decentralized storage solution for Ubisoft Quartz in order to further incorporate nonfungible tokens (NFTs) into Ubisoft’s AAA games. https://t.co/oTzJGUOcyw partners with Ubisoft to bring playable NFTs to AAA games for the first time!!! Read all about how we did it here https://t.co/JiFlATvFcX#aaa #games #decentralized #storage #computing pic.twitter.com/eytP8etvyI — Aleph.im Network (@aleph_im) December 21, 2021 Players will be able to acquire dynamic …

On Wednesday, the Banque de France (BdF), the BIS Innovation Hub (BISIH), and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced the success of a pilot run of a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC), titled Project Jura. The project aimed to investigate cross‑border settlement with euro and Swiss franc wCBDCs, and launched on a third‑party distributed ledger technology platform. The experimental technology explored in Project Jura first consisted of a decentralized peer‑to‑peer network of computer nodes (Corda) to validate transactions while simultaneously ensuring that all legal, regulatory, and business rules of governing nations are satisfied. Then, there was the tokenization of …

French crypto-friendly fintech startup Lydia has raised $100 million in a series C funding round, as per a report in TechCrunch. The latest capital raise reportedly helped Lydia attain unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion. The $100 million fundraise comes nearly a year after its series B funding round of $86 million in December 2020. The round was led by existing investors Tencent and Accel and also saw participation from Dragoneer and Echo Street. The fintech startup aims to use the fresh capital to expand its footprint in Europe. The firm hopes to onboard 10 million European …

French video game publisher Ubisoft announced its first foray into NFTs via a new platform called Ubisoft Quartz to launch in beta this week with Ghost Recon Breakpoint for PC players on Ubisoft Connect. Introducing Ubisoft Quartz We're bringing the first energy efficient NFTs playable in a AAA game to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint! Try it in the beta from December 9 with three free cosmetic drops and learn more here: https://t.co/ysEoYUI4HY pic.twitter.com/owSFE2ALuS — Ubisoft (@Ubisoft) December 7, 2021 Related: Microsoft muscles into the metaverse with Teams updates and Xbox upgrades According to a statement shared on the Ubisoft website, players …

Many exciting developments are coming to the space of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, ranging from Metaverse NFTs to fantasy soccer digital collectible cards and up to monster-battle NFT games. In fact, Cointelegraph Research predicts NFT sales will hit a record high of $17.7 billion this year. But one French startup is taking more of an ambitious approach with wine NFTs. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Samuel Balthazard and Yacin Kharroubi, the chief executive officer and chief product officer of World Wide Wines, respectively, discussed the logistics of making French wine available on the blockchain. Samuel is the descendant of …