France Says 'Show Me the Sats': €5K Wallet Declaration Law Survives Parliamentary First Skirmish

France is about to make saying "c'est pas mon wallet" a lot harder. The National Assembly has greenlit a bill requiring crypto holders to declare self-hosted wallets containing €5,000 (roughly $5,900) or more in digital coins. The move essentially tells degens everywhere: your 0.07 BTC is getting audited.

The legislation, part of a broader "fight against social and tax fraud" package, cleared its first parliamentary hurdle this week. It aims to pull back the curtain on digital asset flows that have proven trickier to track than old-school bank transfers. Because apparently, sending your aunt €200 via Revolut was already too invisible for comfort.

By forcing declarations, the government hopes to snag wealth that's been slipping through the tax net. France's tax authority already had a banner 2025, bagging €17 billion in taxes and penalties through improved asset monitoring. Now crypto gets folded into the surveillance toolkit. Nothing says "we're coming for your gains" quite like adding DeFi to the audit spreadsheet.

The timeline? The bill still needs Senate approval and a joint committee nod—possibly in May—before becoming law. Enforcement probably won't kick in until late 2026 or early 2027, once bureaucrats hash out the implementing rules. So you have roughly two years to pretend this isn't happening, or actually, you know, comply. Revolutionary concept.

France isn't alone in this push. Other jurisdictions are also tightening the screws on crypto transparency. So much for that anonymity, right? Turns out "trustless" only applies to the protocol, not to your tax obligations.

Bottom line: French crypto fans may want to start organizing their record-keeping. The taxman is coming for your keys—just the addresses, not the actual seeds. Yet.