French version of MicroStrategy? The Blockchain Group is ambitious to raise 10 billion euros to establish a Bitcoin treasury

Author: Weilin, PANews

There is an old Chinese saying, "The bolder the man, the more productive the land." The Blockchain Group, a French listed company that only holds $160 million worth of Bitcoin, announced that it would raise tens of billions of euros to purchase Bitcoin.

On June 11, The Blockchain Group (stock code: ALTBG), a technology company located in Puteaux, France and listed on the Euronext Paris, announced that it had held ordinary and extraordinary shareholders' meetings. The main purpose of the meeting was to increase the company's financing capacity by more than 10 billion euros to accelerate its "Bitcoin Treasury Company" strategy, with the goal of increasing the number of bitcoins per share on a fully diluted basis.

As early as December 2024, the company received 2.5 million euros in financing, which attracted the participation of Adam Back, a British cryptographer and encryption hacker cited in the Bitcoin white paper.

The Blockchain Group (TBG) strategy aims to create "insurance" against currency depreciation, and the model is based on a simple principle: increase the number of Bitcoins per share. To achieve this goal, two core strategies are followed: First, financing operations are issued at a premium to the stock price. Recent financing premiums range from 30% to 70%, so there is a "value-added effect" aimed at improving the interests of existing shareholders. Second, take a long-term perspective and measure performance in Bitcoin rather than in Euros or US dollars. Will The Blockchain Group succeed in emulating Strategy's strategy?

Shareholders' meeting approves 10 billion euro Bitcoin treasury plan

Recently, The Blockchain Group held a shareholders' meeting and formally approved the Bitcoin treasury plan.

The meeting also approved the proposal to appoint Alexandre Laizet as a director of the company, effective today, for a term of six years, which will expire at the end of the next Annual Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders, which considers the financial statements for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2030. Alexandre Laizet, Deputy CEO, will be the head of Bitcoin strategy.

The approved financing amount is much higher than the 300 million euros at-the-market (ATM) mechanism announced by the company on June 9. The mechanism was established by The Blockchain Group in cooperation with asset management company TOBAM, allowing the company to issue new shares in batches at market prices at its discretion, and TOBAM will subscribe for them at its sole discretion. If the mechanism is fully implemented, TOBAM may obtain up to 39% of the company's shares.

The approved financing tools include common stock, preferred stock, warrants and convertible bonds, so that the company's financial team can match financing costs and capital allocation according to market demand. The company's management said that it plans to continue to invest the proceeds from this financing authorization in similar Bitcoin acquisitions, making The Blockchain Group the most active listed Bitcoin buyer in Europe.

Executives said the company views the Bitcoin allocation as a supplementary use of idle capital, rather than a complete shift of its business model to a "single asset."

It was difficult to make a profit for many years before the transformation, and currently holds $160 million in BTC

On June 3 this year, The Blockchain Group began to further invest in BTC on a large scale, purchasing 624 BTC worth about $69 million. Combined with previous purchases, as of June 12, according to bitcointreasuries data, the company held a total of 1,471 bitcoins with a total value of $160 million, with an average cost of $102,507 and a book profit of 5.21%.

It has not always been a Bitcoin-centric company. In fact, until the end of 2023, TBG was a diversified blockchain technology company with businesses covering media, consulting, and software services.

In October 2021, TBG opened its first North American office and blockchain research center in Montreal. In February 2022, TBG's blockchain organization The Blockchain Xdev reached a cooperation with NFT market Artrade to accelerate the latter's technology development and promote innovation in the NFT social ecosystem. On June 1, 2023, subsidiary Eniblock announced the launch of the Wallet as a Service (WaaS) beta version. From June 2023 to October 2024, TBG was relatively silent on Twitter for more than a year and did not post any posts. In the past few years of development, The Blockchain Group's performance has been mixed, and profitability has always been difficult to achieve.

Everything changed in December 2023. A new board of directors was appointed and old subsidiaries were divested or liquidated. A new, leaner and more focused entity emerged, with two profitable operating companies at its core - Iorga (custom websites and blockchain solutions) and Trimane (data intelligence and artificial intelligence consulting). In November 2024, TBG became the first Bitcoin Treasury company in Europe, officially adopting a long-term strategy to focus on accumulating Bitcoin, optimizing the number of Bitcoins per share, and treating Bitcoin as core working capital in the digital scarcity economy rather than a speculative asset.

Subsequently, TBG bought Bitcoin several times:

• In November 2024, an additional 1 million euros of shares were issued at a 70% premium to purchase approximately 15 bitcoins.
• In December 2024, another 2.5 million euros were raised, attracting Adam Back and TOBAM to participate and purchase approximately 25 bitcoins.
• In March 2025, it issued convertible bonds denominated in Bitcoin with a face value of 48.6 million euros and purchased 580 Bitcoins, bringing the total number of Bitcoins held by the company to 620.
• During the same period, the stock price rose by 474%.

Behind this bold strategy is the support of a series of cryptocurrency investors: Blockstream CEO Adam Back, who is mentioned in the Bitcoin white paper, personally participated in TBG's financing in December. Fulgur Ventures, UTXO Management, TOBAM and other crypto institutions have also joined the shareholder lineup.

TBG also outlined a blueprint for the next eight years, with more ambitious plans:

• By 2029, the goal is to hold 21,000 to 42,000 bitcoins.
• By 2033, the target grows to 170,000 to 260,000 bitcoins, or about 1% of Bitcoin’s fixed supply.
• And not a single satoshi (the smallest unit of Bitcoin) is sold in the process.

To support growth, the company plans to expand capital raising from 300 million euros this year to over 100 billion euros in the early 2030s. If the price of Bitcoin reaches 1 million to 2 million euros per coin (forecast), TBG's net asset value will reach 210 billion to 420 billion euros, with the potential to become one of the most valuable listed companies in Europe.

Bitcoin Chief is a former CAC 40 consultant who started paying attention to Bitcoin five years ago

Alexandre Laizet is the head of Bitcoin Treasury Strategy at The Blockchain Group. Although he is not as high-profile as Strategy CEO Michael Saylor, the former consultant has provided services to many CAC 40 companies and financial institutions. For the past five years, his full focus has been on Bitcoin.

In a recent media interview, he said that if the US government implements the BTC accumulation plan advocated by Senator Cynthia Lummis, everything will change fundamentally. We may enter the "escape velocity" state, just like a celestial body derails after being subjected to a strong enough gravitational force. Bitcoin is currently in its own cyclical orbit, including price and valuation levels. When it derails, the following phenomena may occur:

• The market value has reached the gold level, about 20 trillion US dollars;
• The price of each Bitcoin reaches at least $1 million;
• The Bitcoin cycle will be completely rewritten: volatility or duration will undergo a qualitative change.

He said that if the United States starts buying Bitcoin regularly, we will see a critical inflection point. When global Bitcoin adoption reaches 15% to 20%, it will trigger a tipping point for mainstream adoption. 2025 will be the year when banks "rush into Bitcoin." Later, bank customers will also rush in.

He also added that the United States has started the race and Europe will catch up. Spain's second-largest bank BBVA has received regulatory approval to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum trading and custody services in its home country. Although this is a surprise move for some, BBVA launched similar services in Switzerland as early as 2021 and expanded to Turkey in 2023.

In addition, other European banks are also in preparation, and although the commercial promotion progress is slow, it is basically in place: SG Forge, BPCE Group, Crédit Agricole, etc. under France's Société Générale (Industrial Bank). It is expected that the largest banks in France will enter the Bitcoin field in a high-profile manner in late 2025 or early 2026.

"This is not surprising, we have reached a critical inflection point. This is Bitcoin's iPhone moment - a dimensional shift that we have foreseen for years and are experiencing... Ultimately, wealth will be denominated in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the ultimate safe-haven asset. Capital will always flow to the best store of value. Due to Bitcoin's absolute scarcity and global accessibility, it will eventually absorb most of the capital." Alexandre Laizet emphasized.

He also pointed out that “at present, the best strategy for public companies is to buy Bitcoin through regulated institutional service providers. This is exactly what we are doing: we buy BTC through the French bank Delubac & Cie and the Luxembourg platform Swissquote. So how can companies join the new economy? Like everyone else, buy Bitcoin.”

So, what proportion of funds should companies put into Bitcoin? He said that the vast majority of companies make the same mistake: they only put a small amount of cash into Bitcoin, and the rest remains in fiat currency. The reason is: this is "insurance" to hedge against currency depreciation, so usually only about 2% is invested. Our model is based on a simple principle: increase the number of Bitcoins per share. To achieve this goal, we follow two core strategies: First, TBG's financing operations will be issued at a premium on the basis of the stock price. Recent financing premiums range from 30% to 70%, so it has a "value-added effect" and directly enhances the interests of existing shareholders. For example, the financing premium of TBG in the round of financing that bought Bitcoin in November last year was as high as 70%, and 40% in December.

Second, TBG takes a long-term perspective and measures performance in Bitcoin rather than in Euros or U.S. dollars.

In general, as one of the few listed companies in Europe that uses Bitcoin as its core financial strategy, The Blockchain Group is actively promoting its position as a "Bitcoin Treasury Company" through additional financing and financial structure adjustments. Although there are still uncertainties in market performance and the regulatory environment, The Blockchain Group has clarified its development path and attracted the attention of some industry investors. Whether it can fulfill its growth goals in the future remains to be seen.