BNP Paribas opens Bitcoin, Ether ETNs to French investors
Six ETNs tied to Bitcoin and Ether will be available to French retail clients through standard securities accounts at BNP Paribas.
BNP Paribas is rolling out six exchange-traded notes linked to Bitcoin and Ether for retail investors in France, with access beginning March 30 through standard securities accounts.
The ETNs will be open to individual investors, entrepreneurs and private banking clients, along with users of the bank’s digital platform, Hello bank!. The company indicated the rollout could extend to wealth management clients outside France at a later stage.
Exchange-traded notes are debt securities that track the value of an underlying asset or index. In this case, they are indexed to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), offering price exposure through a regulated instrument held in a brokerage account. ETNs carry issuer credit risk, and their structure is designed to closely reflect the underlying asset’s price. Depending on investor circumstances, tax treatment may differ from holding cryptocurrencies directly.
The offering builds on BNP Paribas’ recent work in digital assets and blockchain infrastructure. In 2024, the bank arranged and placed Slovenia’s first digital sovereign bond, the European Union’s first government bond issued using blockchain technology. In September last year, BNP Paribas joined the Canton Foundation with HSBC to support the Canton Network, a blockchain network focused on institutional finance and RWA tokenization. The bank had earlier taken part in a $135 million funding round for Digital Asset, the developer behind Canton’s technology stack.
Last month, BNP Paribas Asset Management launched a tokenized share class of a money market fund on the Ethereum blockchain, following an earlier issuance on a private blockchain in Luxembourg. The initiative tests both public and private networks for fund distribution and settlement.
Crypto-linked ETNs continue to gain traction in Europe. ING Germany recently added products from Bitwise and VanEck to its offering. In the United Kingdom, crypto ETNs returned to the retail market in October 2025 after the Financial Conduct Authority reversed a ban introduced in 2021.
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