Bpifrance, a French state-owned investment bank, plans to invest 25 million euros ($27 million) in digital assets as part of an initiative to strengthen the country’s blockchain industry.

The bank will buy and hold crypto tokens related to decentralized finance (DeFi) tokenization, staking and staking, it said on Thursday.

The plan is for the investments to support local blockchain projects in their early stages for the betterment of the broader blockchain industry in France

“Having the ability to invest directly in digital assets is a significant step forward for Bpifrance and a pioneering initiative among sovereign wealth funds,” the bank said.

France emerged as a burgeoning crypto hub in 2022 as it sought to pre-empt the introduction of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation and tempted a number of prominent cryptocurrency firms to make the country their European base.