BNP Paribas, the French multinational universal bank, is broadening its investment lineup by introducing six crypto-linked exchange-traded notes, giving retail clients in France regulated exposure to Bitcoin and Ether. The products become available from Monday through standard securities accounts. The bank says the rollout could later be extended to wealth management clients outside France.
The six exchange-traded notes, or ETNs, are indexed to the prices of Bitcoin and Ether and are open to individual investors, entrepreneurs, private banking clients, and users of the bank’s digital platform, Hello bank!. Unlike purchasing digital assets directly, ETNs allow investors to track the performance of cryptocurrencies without holding them. The instruments carry credit risk — meaning investors could lose money if the issuing bank fails — but offer no tracking error and come with certain tax advantages.
The launch is part of a broader push by BNP Paribas into digital assets and blockchain-based finance. In 2024, the bank arranged and placed Slovenia‘s first digital sovereign bond, which also represented the European Union‘s inaugural issuance of a blockchain-based government bond. These efforts reflect a sustained institutional interest in integrating distributed ledger technology into mainstream financial products.
BNP Paribas has also deepened its ties to blockchain infrastructure through a series of partnerships and investments. In September of last year, the bank joined HSBC in becoming members of the Canton Foundation, which governs the Canton Network, a blockchain platform focused on institutional finance and real-world asset tokenization. Prior to that, BNP Paribas participated alongside Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and other major financial institutions in a $135 million funding round for Digital Asset, the firm behind the Canton Network.
More recently, BNP Paribas Asset Management launched a tokenized share class of a money market fund on the Ethereum blockchain, extending its push into fund tokenization using public infrastructure. That move followed an earlier issuance conducted on a private blockchain in Luxembourg. Together, these steps illustrate the bank’s incremental approach to embedding blockchain technology across different areas of its business.
The expansion of crypto-linked ETNs is not limited to BNP Paribas. Across Europe, adoption of such products is growing, with ING Germany adding new ETNs from Bitwise and VanEck to its investment platform. In the United Kingdom, crypto ETNs returned to the retail market in October 2025 after the Financial Conduct Authority reversed a ban it had imposed in 2021, further signaling a shift in regulatory attitudes toward these instruments across the continent.
Originally reported by CoinTelegraph.
