French Tabacs buy into Bitcoin

With the backing of FinTech venture Keplerk, six tobacco shops in and around Paris have started selling Bitcoin for fiat, Reuters reports.

Adil Zakhar, one of Keplerk’s co-founders, hopes to enrol up to 6,500 Tabacs by February. “Some people find it complicated to get Bitcoins online,” he says. “They trust their local tobacco shop owner more than they would trust some remote anonymous website.”

French stock market regulator, the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), the country’s central bank and Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) recently issued a warning about the risks associated with “speculative” crypto assets. However, they have not blocked the Keplerk initiative. 

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