Buying retail in cryptocurrencies is possible for a year at around thirty traders in Talence, in the suburbs of Bordeaux. A pioneering initiative in France but stammering for these assets often considered as speculative, whose democratization stumbles on tax and psychological barriers.
“Paying in crypto”, offers a pannonceau on the zinc of the crash, a micro-brewery which accepts this dematerialized means of payment as well as around thirty shops in this commune in the southwest of France, against around twenty at the start.
Behind the bar, the Cogerants Kirill Pluscheff (30 years old) and ENGURAND LACHE (25 years old) can generate an QR Code on an application called LYZI, that the customer scans to take his “wallet” (cryptocurrency portfolio) and make the payment on the business account, in euros this time.
“It is our means of catching a new customers,” said Enguérand Larché to AFP, without however giving up payment by bank card which represents 95% of its receipts.
With “A few transactions per month” in Talence, “it’s already won” for the Lyzi application, enthuses Damien Patureaux, its founder.
– Young and foreigners –
The start-up claims more than 2,000 merchants affiliated in France and Europe, including the department stores in the spring (Kering group). In Cannes, on the Côte d’Azur (southeast), around fifty shops are equipped, including prestigious hotels, aimed at a foreign clientele wishing in particular to get rid of the exchange effects.
“Payment in cryptocurrencies can anchor in physical trade,” wants to believe Lyzi. For Damien Patureaux, “it will democratize even more”.
According to a study by the KPMG firm in 2023, only 8% of French people have already invested in “cryptos”. Among them, half are under 35 years old.
It is this public that the merchants of Talence target: with a quarter of its 42,000 inhabitants aged between 18 and 24, including many students, the town presents itself as the “youngest city” in France, argues Bertrand Cousin, director of the economic development agency Talence Innovation, at the origin of the initiative.
But the beginnings are timid: after a year, the number of monthly payments remains minimal: two operations per month for one of the participating butchers for example, according to Talence Innovation).
Damien Patureaux stresses that 20% of merchants affiliated with Lyzi in Europe represent 80% of the volume of payments -estimated at a few million euros per month -, with the first line the luxury brands that target an “elitist” clientele and “the favorite” favorite “purchase of users after a good added value on their cryptoactifs.
“The very small trader is not what generates the most volume,” he admits.
In question, according to supporters of cryptocurrencies, French taxation which taxes capital gains and obliges a tedious declaration, purchase by purchase.
– “complexity” –
Assid user who will settle in “crypto” a next trip to South Africa, Jérémy Debreu “does not believe a second” at the immediate development of initiatives like that of Talence.
“You really have to encourage it. But I am quite skeptical about the fact that users take this tax risk,” said this CSR consultant (corporate social responsibility) residing in Bègles, a commune bordering Talence.
“It is such an obstacle to my opinion, many people do not declare,” points out Claire Balva, who is preparing to leave the neo-banque deblock to take the lead of the association for the development of digital assets (Adan), French lobby in the crypto sector. “Not because they don’t want to pay taxes, but because it’s immensely complicated.”
The other limit to the democratization of cryptocurrencies is psychological, faced with their “complexity” and their sometimes connoted image, between “financial product to enrich themselves” or active “to whiten money”, points David Pucheu, lecturer in information sciences and communication at Bordeaux-Montaigne University.
“This is a generational question”, he continues, but also “cultural” with certain countries of the South, such as Nigeria, where the “Wallet” has become more democratic to compensate for difficult access “to correct banking services”.
For Claire Balva, operators will have to “offer something as simple” as the traditional bank card. “Cryptos infrastructure will gradually replace conventional payment via Visa and Mastercard,” she wants to believe.
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