Bytes — the first French company to incorporate using bitcoins, ever. At , . Doing things differently yields new insights, enabling us to tap into new value drivers. We take this approach to everything, including how we incorporated our company ( ). Bytes we try to innovate in all we do Bytes R&D What we did On June 27, . While companies typically use money or assets (like intellectual property or real estate), we used bitcoins. we became the first French company ever to incorporate using cryptocurrencies as initial capital Why we did it To demonstrate that : with revenues, assets, and expenses all secured by the blockchain. a "regular" company can exist without a bank To open a , a major theme in Europe. dialogue on how to treat bitcoins from a tax and accounting point of view In many countries, the company registration authorities demand that a bank account be open ahead of a company's official incorporation. No bank account, no incorporation. Unfortunately, most banks refuse to open bank accounts for Blockchain startups. As an example, the French “ ” had to go to Germany to open a bank account! La Maison du Bitcoin We just showed this entire hassle is unnecessary. How we did it Technologically, the process of funding a newly created company with Bitcoin fairly simple (although one has to be careful of getting the cryptography right). : We started by mining an address for the company Second, we transferred bitcoins we held at an exchange to it. Voilà! Everything is auditable @ Blockchain.info . Three (legal) remarks: The regulator typically does not consider bitcoins to be currency units. Therefore you need to treat them as "intangible personal property", and have an accountant/expert value them upon incorporation. We recommend transferring the initial funding from an exchange since this takes care of proving the funding source (as reputable exchanges will have taken care of the anyhow). KYC We had to demonstrate that the address … really is in control of the company. We did this by signing, using the private key corresponding with this address, the following message: 1BYTESu3 Bytes R&D S.A.S., in the person of its President, Samuel Martinet, hereby demonstrates control over this address. For the cryptography inclined ( ): an explainer public key: 04e01c90696a276a735c26919ebc9062d239351b139d877958405381187753bae0eb5bfa32e77cd358c637d34ca6bee471ddfe220437448b3f69c01ed677707707 signature: G1misERoCfTmsRKEnYmgSl1c6Du3FGWxSIUKN9gx2X7W+LPMejtYKaLyzmXlY+l1I0f8NMtGuD1xvK6akSWaxZg= To ensure immortal existence to our founding act, we (@ Qmf5vz9LDVE7pLGPKyMhTJBshzX5HbeRxnzK7sZ9jFjjYF). saved it in IPFS Conclusion Arriving at this stage took months of efforts and coordination with accountants and lawyers (a thousand thanks to Marine M.D.). On the other hand, the procedure itself is very simple. For us, it shows that many cumbersome formalities could be cut down to a one minute exercise using the Blockchain. We hope to pave the way for many others in France and abroad. In the meantime, ! we will keep surprising you Published in the Journal d'Annonces Officiel (this one too could be put on the blockchain…) Like our project ? Come to visit our offices… 148 Bd du Montparnasse, 7th Floor. Forgot the address? Find it in the Company Registry! 👏**.** … or comment, clap, or follow
