Chainalysis Finds a Wide Gap Between Crypto Activity and Reported Gains
France is facing a growing challenge in tracking cryptocurrency activity for tax purposes as blockchain usage expands and European reporting requirements become stricter.
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that France recorded $9.4 billion in potentially taxable crypto activity during 2025. The estimate includes several different types of onchain economic activity rather than simply taxable profits. France's total consisted of approximately $5.2 billion in crypto payments, $2.5 billion in capital gains and $1.7 billion in crypto-related income, including activities such as mining and staking.
That figure stands in sharp contrast to French tax declarations for the 2024 income year. Approximately 24,000 taxpayers reported a combined €368 million in net crypto gains, compared with roughly 7,700 taxpayers who reported €150.8 million the previous year. The two datasets cover different years and measure different things, so they should not be treated as a direct calculation of France's tax gap.
Why the $9.4 Billion Figure Does Not Equal Taxable Profit
The difference between the two numbers requires some context.
Chainalysis uses the term “potentially taxable crypto activity” to describe its onchain estimate. Its methodology combines realized gains, income and payments and maps activity to countries using blockchain and service-level location signals. The company also warns that its estimates do not capture every type of crypto activity and are therefore conservative.
For France, the $9.4 billion estimate includes $2.5 billion of gains, but also $1.7 billion of income and $5.2 billion of payments. A payment or transaction does not automatically represent taxable profit. Likewise, the €368 million reported by French taxpayers represents declared net gains for a different tax year. As a result, the figures demonstrate a significant difference in scale but cannot be used on their own to calculate how much French tax revenue is missing.
Chainalysis Warns Crypto Tax Compliance Can Exceed a 90% Shortfall
Chainalysis' broader research points to substantial difficulties for tax authorities trying to identify crypto activity.
The company estimates that global potentially taxable onchain crypto activity exceeded $457 billion in 2025, covering gains, income and payments across six major blockchains. The United States represented about $112.6 billion, while the European Union accounted for $125.1 billion. France's $9.4 billion placed it among the 15 countries with the highest estimated potentially taxable activity in the study.
Chainalysis has also discussed situations where crypto tax non-compliance may exceed 90%, citing evidence from other jurisdictions. That figure should not be interpreted as a confirmed 90% non-compliance rate for France. In particular, Chainalysis' own comparison references findings from Sweden, where more than 90% of people examined had not correctly reported their crypto activity. The evidence instead illustrates the broader difficulty of voluntary crypto tax reporting.
France Already Has a Formal Crypto Tax Framework
French residents are already required to report taxable crypto gains under the country's existing rules.
According to the French tax authority, individuals managing crypto assets as part of their private wealth are subject to a 31.4% flat tax from 2026, consisting of 12.8% income tax and 18.6% social contributions. However, the tax treatment can differ for professional traders and certain crypto-related income such as mining or staking.
The French government also states that simply holding crypto assets is not itself taxable. For private investors, taxation generally applies when crypto assets are sold in taxable circumstances, while certain crypto-to-crypto exchanges can benefit from a tax deferral mechanism. The annual exemption threshold is based on total sale proceeds: if the total amount of relevant disposals does not exceed €305, the transactions are exempt.
More details are available through the French tax authority's official cryptocurrency tax guidance.
DAC8 Changes How Crypto Transactions Are Reported
A major change is now underway at the European Union level through DAC8, the eighth amendment to the EU's Directive on Administrative Cooperation.
DAC8 entered into force on January 1, 2026. Under the rules, reporting crypto-asset service providers must collect information on reportable transactions involving EU-resident users. The information is then provided to national tax authorities, with the first exchanges covering the 2026 reporting year scheduled by September 30, 2027.
The European Commission's official DAC8 guidance says the system is intended to improve automatic information exchange between EU countries and combat tax evasion and avoidance involving crypto assets.
CARF Extends Crypto Tax Transparency Beyond the EU
DAC8 is closely connected to the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF, developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
CARF establishes international standards for collecting and automatically exchanging information about crypto-asset transactions. Chainalysis says dozens of jurisdictions have committed to beginning information exchanges under CARF from 2027, with additional countries expected to participate later.
The European Commission notes that DAC8's reporting rules are based on the OECD's CARF standard. The EU framework covers a broad range of crypto assets and requires reporting crypto-asset service providers to collect identification and transaction information.
This means the reporting environment for centralized crypto platforms is becoming substantially more structured. Transactions conducted through regulated exchanges and other reporting intermediaries are increasingly likely to become visible to tax authorities through automated data-sharing systems.
Self-Custody and DeFi Remain Harder to Track
Despite the expansion of DAC8 and CARF, significant parts of the crypto economy remain difficult for traditional tax reporting systems to capture.
Chainalysis points to DeFi, peer-to-peer transfers, private wallet activity and other onchain transactions as areas where conventional reporting frameworks can have limitations. CARF is primarily designed around intermediaries that can identify customers and report their transactions.
This creates an important distinction between centralized and decentralized crypto activity. A transaction conducted through a regulated exchange may generate customer and transaction records that can be reported to authorities, while activity involving self-custody wallets or decentralized protocols may not have a comparable reporting intermediary.
Chainalysis estimates that existing CARF-style reporting frameworks could directly capture only a portion of global potentially taxable activity, meaning blockchain intelligence may remain important for tax authorities seeking a broader picture of crypto activity.
France Also Faces Security Risks Around Crypto Tax Data
The expansion of crypto tax reporting comes amid heightened concerns about the security of sensitive financial information in France.
Chainalysis reported in August that France had become a major hotspot for physical attacks targeting cryptocurrency holders. The company said more than $30 million had been stolen through violent crypto attacks globally during the first half of 2026 and linked France's surge partly to compromised information about crypto holders.
According to Chainalysis, France experienced roughly 4.6 attacks per month during the first half of 2026, compared with approximately 1.9 per month during 2025. The company pointed to a 2024 case involving alleged theft and sale of information about wealthy crypto holders, including names, addresses, holdings and tax records.
The issue illustrates a difficult balance for regulators: better tax visibility can help authorities identify undeclared crypto activity, but sensitive financial and identity data must also be protected against unauthorized access.
What DAC8 Could Mean for French Crypto Users
France's crypto tax system is moving toward a model in which tax authorities can rely less on voluntary declarations and more on information supplied by regulated crypto intermediaries.
The January 1, 2026 start of DAC8 means that reporting crypto-asset service providers are already operating under new data-collection requirements. The first cross-border exchanges of information from the 2026 reporting year are expected by September 30, 2027.
For French crypto users, the transition means accurate record-keeping is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, the Chainalysis figures show why regulators are interested in expanding crypto reporting: the scale of onchain economic activity is considerably larger than the amount of crypto gains currently visible through voluntary tax declarations.
The $9.4 billion estimate should not be interpreted as $9.4 billion of unpaid French taxes. Instead, it highlights the growing scale of crypto activity that tax authorities may need to understand as DAC8 and CARF move crypto reporting toward greater international transparency.
