According to Les Echos, Bitcoin has gained the status of a legal payment means in France. This came as the result of a court decision made in late February but published only recently.
Bitcoin and France. The situation has clearly improved. Now the experts anticipate a more liquid BTC market in France. Just in case you didn't know, a similar decision was made by the Japanese legal authorities on April 1st, 2017.
The mentioned decision was made by the arbitrary court in Nanterre. The document says that BTC is an exchangeable component of non-material assets similar to paper money. Clearly, this decision allows French businesses and individuals to pay with Bitcoins and accept Bitcoins as a legal payment means when selling their products and services. Since the market is going to become more liquid, the amount of businesses accepting Bitcoin is definitely going to surge as well, which will only make the market even more liquid.
IS this good for the French cryptocurrency community? Just to let you know, the court made such a decision during the trial between a French exchange named Paymium and an English investment company named BitSpread. Both of them had been working in the blockchain sector for a while.
In 2014, Paymium lent a certain amount of BTC to BitSpread. When Bitcoin Cash came into existence in 2017, all of the BTC owners got BCH, with 1-to-1 ratio. So, the question was whether BitSpread should pay Paymium the BCH gained.
As for Europe, Germany turend out to be the first European country to legalize Bitcoin. It should be noted that Bitcoin was recognized as something referred to as "private money" and "financial asset". German banks ca store Bitcoin for their clients but only after getting a license from BaFin.
