Today an update from France, the home of 67 million people and the fifth largest economy in the world. Guest contributor Sandrine Ayral has been involved in the Parisian startup ecosystem for the past several years, working for startups, a VC fund and TheFamily, a local startup accelerator before diving into Bitcoin last February. She worked on Coinbase‘s remote team for a few months, before joining the founding team of NeuCoin in June 2014. Enjoy… “Bitcoin in France” | Sandrine Ayral, co-founder Neucoin France has never been particularly famous for its welcoming stance towards innovation, a fact French entrepreneurs are regularly reminded of: last January

Uber had to ferociously battle

the Parisian taxi lobby. In May, Arnaud Montebourg, France’s previous Minister of Economy, killed

Daylimotion’s acquisition

by Yahoo. Not long after his election, François Hollande proposed a

tax reform

plan that boiled down to a 60% income tax rate for entrepreneurs selling their company. Despite all this, France is experiencing a

rebirth of its tech scene

, and 2014 began as an interesting era for Bitcoin as well.

France was the first European country to welcome a Bitcoin center. La Maison du Bitcoin opened its doors in May, originally to incubate startups working on Bitcoin projects, to educate French people through various events – and to allow anyone to buy Bitcoin via a Bitcoin ATM. The inauguration of the center was closely followed by a Bitcoin hackathon, sponsored by Coinbase and Paymium - a French company offering an exchange, wallet and merchant tools.

La Maison du Bitcoin’s founders, BTChip and Chronocoin launched together a multisig hardware wallet, the Ledger Nano Wallet, focused on ease-of-use, affordability, and of course, security. It received quite enthusiastic feedback from the Bitcoin community - you can check Coindesk’s article on this. Also worth mentioning, Brawker built a marketplace that matches people who want to buy Bitcoin with others who want to purchase items online with Bitcoin. Like Purse.io, the shoppers gain a discount by using the platform – but their service isn’t limited to Amazon. They’re doing a particularly amazing job on fraud prevention. A big September news event was the deal Paymium signed with showroomprive.com, a major online fashion retailer, making it the first big European merchant to accept Bitcoin. For this year, I’d keep an eye on Challenger Deep, a Bitcoin venture started by Criteo’s former COO, Pascal Gauthier, that will be coming out of stealth mode soon.

Regulation-wise, the French Senate held hearings last January, inviting a few Bitcoin experts to share their knowledge on the subject. This event was followed in July by the publication of a

report on the subject

, which underlined the digital currency’s risks, its “volatility, its anonymity and its lack of legal guarantee”, but also acknowledged Bitcoin’s potential benefits and opportunities as a “payment system and […] a decentralized validation protocol”, reckoning that Bitcoin is secure, its usage vast and the transaction costs low. As another encouraging note, Michel Sapin, the French Minister of Economy, declared last July that he would encourage his European counterparties to vote a text making purchases of Bitcoins exempt from value added tax (VAT) – this still remains to be voted however. Despite the above-mentioned encouraging elements, the French Bitcoin ecosystem remains extremely small – especially when compared to London’s more welcoming scene. French VC funds’ involvement in Bitcoin is literally non-existent so far, not necessarily due to a lack of interest or excessive risk-averseness of French VC funds in general. True enough, the Bitcoin startup deal flow is simply pretty limited for now. Because their LPs are banks, a few VCs also refuse to even consider Bitcoin startups’ decks. Still, Thomas France, La Maison du Bitcoin’s founder, told me: “we will see the first French VC investments in French Bitcoin startups in 2015, I’m sure.” So soon enough! A quick look at the 2014 publications around Bitcoin in the main national newspapers shows there is a common misunderstanding of Bitcoin: instead of presenting what the technology really does - removing costly middlemen in any type of transaction by operating a decentralized public and secure ledger - the media almost always present bitcoin as a conveniently untraceable digital currency for terrorists, money-launderers or drug dealers. Most Bitcoin-related headlines cover Silk Road, the Onymous affair or similar stories, feeding a pretty tinted view to more mainstream spheres. This discourse was sadly picked up by a police communiqué after the

the closure of an illegal Bitcoin exchange

in July. According to the police, Bitcoin and digital currencies are very likely to spark criminal activity because of “the lack of transparency around their existence and their functioning” - a fundamental misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is and (perhaps more troubling) a lack of curiosity from enforcers leading to unavoidable misconceptions.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any strong organization to push a more accurate vision of Bitcoin and its underlying protocol to French journalists and regulators - despite La Maison du Bitcoin’s opening. Some efforts were made by Paymium during the Senate hearings back in January, but France is still in dire need of a credible association promoting Bitcoin and acting as the industry’s spokesperson.

2014 concluded with a conference held by the ACPR, an authority monitoring the activities of banks and insurance companies in France. The conference confirmed that France would follow the European Banking Authority

(EBA)’s recommendations

issued in July, which states that the regulatory body is aware it needs to develop a “substantial body of regulation”, which is going to take some time. In the meantime, its immediate response is to “discourage credit institutions, payment institutions and e-money institutions from buying, holding, or selling virtual currencies” - not exactly helpful for digital currency businesses seeking banking partners. More worrying is that the ACPR’s rendering of the EBA report showed a clear lack of objectivity around Bitcoin and its potential risks and opportunities: while 70 risks where presented, only a single “potential” benefit was listed: lower transaction costs. Here’s hoping the EBA’s long-term regulatory guidance will yield more clarity.

There is much more to do for Bitcoin to pick up in France. We need more entrepreneurs focusing on blockchain projects, and more VC funding to develop products and services that will encourage mainstream adoption. But the movement has started!

For Entrepreneurs

The MIT E-Lab is a well established (20+ year) program that helps startups by matching them with MIT & Harvard business school students for a semester. The E-Lab is now looking for cryptocurrency related startups at various stages, so apply if you think this could help your efforts. (You don’t need to be local, but a c-level exec has to be in Cambridge frequently.) To apply, or for more info on E-Lab visit http://elab.mit.edu/.

Events

MIT Bitcoin Expo - March 7-8th

Get your tickets today – MIT is hosting its second annual Bitcoin Expo on March 7th and 8th!

This premiere student-run event, hosted by the MIT Bitcoin Club and Wellesley Bitcoin Club, features two days of panels and presentations from leading professionals and academics in the cryptocurrency space. You’ll hear from engineers who maintain and develop the core Bitcoin protocol, academics on the cutting edge of cryptocurrency research, and founders and executives of some of the hottest million-dollar startups in bitcoin.

Join hundreds of students and professionals as we learn about the most recent and upcoming legal and technical developments in Bitcoin. Delve into the heart of recent developments with experts like Gavin Andresen, Jeremy Allaire, Adam Ludwin, Charlie Lee, Constance Choi, Peter Todd, Jerry Brito, Joi Ito, Andreas Antonopoulous and

many

, many more

.

Day One will provide insight into the Bitcoin mainstreaming process as well as the legal and security challenges for Bitcoin companies to overcome. Day Two will detail the inner workings of bitcoin and the new technologies that are emerging as the industry develops. Join us as we strive to understand the present and build the future.

The event is free for students and only $125 for 2 days for professionals.

For more information visit

mitbitcoinexpo.org

Inside Bitcoins Conference and Expo - Berlin (Mar. 5-6), and New York (Apr. 27-29) Inside Bitcoins is the largest bitcoin and blockchain technology focused event series worldwide. At each event you’ll hear about the latest challenges, trends, and opportunities in the industry from experts including Chris Odom, Co-Founder and CTO, Monetas; Marshall Swatt, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder, Coinsetter; Dan Morehead, Founder & CEO, Pantera Capital Management; Gil Luria, Managing Director, Wedbush Securities; and more. Plus, TBI Daily readers get 10% off the

Berlin

and

New York

events with code TBIDAILY. See you there!

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Bitnet, San Francisco, Belfast, London (VC-backed)

-Leading digital commerce platform & former Visa team.

-Open positions: Engineering (Customer Success, Lead UI, Product, DevOps), Sales Director (EMEA), Sales Engineer (San Francisco)

-Check out Bitnet (https://bitnet.io/careers.html) and email jobs@bitnet.io

Coinbase, San Francisco (VC-backed)

-Largest "universal services” bitcoin company.

-Open positions:

Security Engineer

,

Software Engineer

(2-3 years mobile product development),

Regulatory Compliance Investigator

, (1 year conducting SAR investigations)

-Check out Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com/careers/)

BitGo, Palo Alto (VC-backed)

-The leading Bitcoin multi-sig security company

-Open positions: Back-end / Front-End / iOS / Security Engineers, UX Designer

-Check out BitGo (www.bitgoinc.com/jobs) and email jobs@bitgo.com

Bolt, San Francisco (VC-backed)

-Stealth startup focused on consumer applications of Bitcoin.

-Open positions: Security Engineer, Ruby Engineer, UI/UX Designer, Executive Assistant.

-Check out Bolt (bolt.com) and email jobs@bolt.com.

Elliptic, London (VC-backed)

-Full-service bitcoin custodian.

-Open positions: Data Scientists and Front-end developers.

-Learn more and apply at elliptic.workable.com

Today’s Tid Bits

Bitcoin Foundation’s Patrick Murck to Advise Lending Network BTCJam

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-foundations-patrick-murck-advise-lending-network-btcjam/

Executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, Patrick Murck has joined the board of advisors of BTCJam, a bitcoin-powered peer-to-peer lending network. Murch took over as executive director of the foundation following Jon Matonis’ resignation last October.

New York Councilman: Bitcoin Could Save City Millions

http://www.coindesk.com/new-york-city-bitcoin-save-millions/

Last Thursday, Mark Levine, a New York City councilman, introduced a bill petitioning the city to accept bitcoin as payment for fines and fees. In order for the bill to pass it will have to gather co-sponsors, then head to a vote with the city’s technology committee and eventually a full vote in the city council. Levine, a democrat from the 7th District in northern Manhattan, is optimistic that the bill will be passed by the end of June, stating that city would save lots on avoiding fees charged by payment card providers.

Policy Experts Talk Transparency in Bitcoin at Foreign Affairs Event

http://www.coindesk.com/policy-experts-talk-transparency-bitcoin-foreign-affairs-event/

Last Thursday in New York, three expert panelists spoke about the emerging digital currency protocols and the potential they have to transform payments at a day-long meeting hosted by the Foreign Affairs journal. Ann Shere Wallwork, a senior counselor for strategic policy at the US Department of the Treasury, Karen Gifford, the chief compliance officer at Ripple Labs, and John Beccia, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Circle, all spoke. The discussion centered around digital currency and it’s current rules-based, risk-based regulation.

Two Bitcoin ATMs Stolen in Amsterdam

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113503/two-bitcoin-atms-stolen-in-amsterdam

A thief stole two of Amsterdam’s Bitcoin-ATMs and as of yet, the offenders have not been caught. One machine is a two-way BitAccess BTM, worth about $10,000, and the other is a one-way General Bytes BATMtwo, worth around $3,000. The BitAccess BTM was placed in a small Thai restaurant named Waries Thai Food, and the other was located at ’t Hofje van Wijs, a bar in the Red Light District. As of yet, the offenders have not been caught.

Virginia Law Firm Now Accepts Bitcoin for Services

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113501/southwest-virginia-law-firm-now-accepts-bitcoin-for-services

A law firm in Southwest Virginia that provides estate planning and administration services, Anderson, Desimone & Green, is now accepting bitcoin as a payment method from clients. Coinbase will be processing the bitcoin transactions. Chris Desimone, president of the area law firm and estate planning attorney, believes bitcoin will soon be a standard in the marketplace.

Have a tip or feedback? Email me! (2bitidiot@gmail.com)