FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Hubert de Vauplane and Hugo Bordet, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
covered by the Pilot Regime (p20). This proposal is taken up by the new Article L. 211-7 of the French Monetary and Financial Code, accord - ing to which “the conditions and property effects of transactions in financial securities registered using distributed ledger technology under the conditions laid down by Regulation (EU) 2022/858… are determined by the law of the State where the entity authorised to operate the DLT settlement system or, where applicable, the DLT trading and settlement system is located” . In 2025, to support the implementation of the Pilot Regime, the AMF published an in-depth report describing the main measures of the Euro - pean regulation and the exemptions it grants under existing frameworks. It also provides a reminder on how to submit an application to the French financial authorities. 10.3 Classification of Blockchain Assets Under the existing legislation, certain block - chain assets qualify as financial instruments within the meaning of MiFID II (and its transpo - sition into French law); ie, any blockchain asset which presents the characteristics of a financial instrument would likely qualify and be regulated as such. MiCAR has not altered this classifica - tion. Indeed, financial instruments are expressly excluded from the scope of MiCAR and, as a result, from the existing blockchain asset regu - lation within the French Monetary and Financial Code. During the grandfathering period, the French Monetary and Financial Code, as amended by the MiCAR transposition ordinance of 15 Octo - ber 2024, distinguishes between three catego - ries of blockchain assets: • tokens, excluding those that meet the charac - teristics of financial instruments;
• any digital representation of value; and • crypto-assets as defined in Article 3 of MiCAR. At the same time, MiCAR distinguishes three types of crypto-assets: • asset-referenced tokens (ARTs); • EMTs; and • other crypto-assets. In addition, French regulators tend to use taxon - omy in their publications to distinguish between security tokens, utility tokens and payment tokens. Regulation No 2018-07 of the Accounting Stand - ards Authority ( Autorité des normes comptables , ANC) qualifies all crypto-assets, including cryp - tocurrencies, as “tokens” for accounting pur - poses. The classification of NFTs, however, is still unclear. MiCAR and, consequently, the French Monetary and Financial Code exclude them from their scope of application. They may or may not qualify as digital assets or tokens, depending on their characteristics and the rights that they provide. 10.4 Regulation of “Issuers” of Blockchain Assets The French Monetary and Financial Code, as amended by the PACTE Act, included a section dedicated to token issuers. These provisions applied to the issuance of tokens that do not qualify as financial instruments. Under French law, token issuers had the right to ask the AMF to grant its approval ( “visa” ) to their ICO, as soon as the following requirements were met:
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