Chainalysis The latest research shows that France recorded approximately $9.4 billion in "tax-related" cryptocurrency activities in 2025, ranking 13th among the countries included in the study. The institution also emphasizes that this figure does not equate to unpaid taxes, nor does it represent the amount of tax that the French government can directly recover.
$9.4 billion is composed of three parts.
This total estimate includes approximately $1.7 billion in crypto revenue, $2.5 billion in realized profits, and $5.2 billion in crypto payment activities.
Among them, the revenue portion includes mining, staking, lending, and some on-chain earnings; the realized earnings correspond to profits from both centralized and decentralized transactions; payments involve merchant services and peer-to-peer economic activities. Different types of transactions are subject to different tax treatments, therefore, it is not appropriate to consider the $9.4 billion as taxable profit directly.
The global estimate for Chainalysis is based on six chains: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Tron, BNB Smart Chain, and Base. The institution also reminds that transactions, staking, and lending activities within centralized exchanges are not always fully observable on public chains, so the overall scale may be underestimated.
There is a significant discrepancy between the data reported by France and the estimates on the blockchain.
Public data also shows that French taxpayers declared 368 million euros in encrypted capital gains for the 2024 tax year through approximately 24,000 tax returns. This figure differs significantly from the Chainalysis estimate of 9.4 billion dollars for 2025, but the two cannot be directly compared.
The reason is that the former corresponds to the previous tax year and only covers declared capital gains; whereas the latter is a broader estimate of on-chain activities, including data on income, earnings, and payments, and is denominated in US dollars. The article points out that this discrepancy indicates challenges faced by tax enforcement, but it cannot be used directly to determine the actual tax gap in France.
DAC8 will launch its first round of exchanges in 2027.
The EU DAC8 came into effect on January 1, 2026. According to the regulations, platforms that provide crypto asset services are required to collect declarable transaction information from EU residents starting from 2026 and submit their first annual reports in 2027.
The information that platforms are required to collect may include name, address, tax identification number, date of birth, and tax residency status. Additionally, they must report the total amount and number of transactions, covering fiat currency exchanges, cross-currency transactions, transfers, and certain payment activities. The deadline for the first round of information exchange between EU tax authorities is September 30, 2027.
For existing individual users, the platform is usually required to obtain a valid tax residency self-certification by January 1, 2027. If a user still does not provide the required information after two reminders, the member state must request the platform to restrict their ability to declare transactions after 60 days.
Most on-chain activities are still not within the scope of direct declaration.
According to Chainalysis's estimates, only about 14% of the on-chain activities it identified that "may involve taxation" fall within the actual reporting coverage of CARF, while the remaining 86% mainly come from decentralized transactions, peer-to-peer transfers, on-chain revenue, and payments.
The reason is that DAC8 and CARF mainly rely on centralized service providers to submit data. Exchanges and brokers typically hold account records and real-name information, but decentralized protocols may not have the same user identification capabilities. Users may also transfer assets across multiple private key wallets or platforms, or interact directly with smart contracts, which all increases the difficulty of tax identification and cost accounting.
Even so, this does not mean that such activities cannot be taxed. Tax authorities can still conduct verifications by combining records from exchanges, on-chain analysis, audits, and data exchanged across judicial jurisdictions. As data continues to be collected in 2026, French tax authorities will have a more complete basis for comparison starting from 2027.
