Privacy and the future of French tech

Bonjour la France! Nym France officially opens at Paris Blockchain Week.

Author: Nym

March 30, 20236 mins read

Bonjour la France! Nym France officially opens at Paris Blockchain Week.

Nym has reached a new milestone with the official opening of Nym France during last week’s Paris Blockchain Week.

Nym has had close ties to France for a while now being an alumni of Station F, noted as the world’s largest startup campus. Nym CEO Harry Halpin was a visiting researcher at INRIA Paris where he led the NEXTLEAP project, which laid the foundations for what became Nym.

Nym France is the first company in France to be set up purely in Bitcoin, without a traditional bank account. This is a revolutionary step which sets the pace for Nym’s ambition in the French tech ecosystem.

The foundation on the discourse of privacy has been built in French tech through projects like Ledger and Arianee. Nym’s vision is to further advance and push privacy firmly to the forefront alongside other French tech giants.

We had a phenomenal line-up of quality panelists, on Nym’s privacy work, Web3 and privacy, entrepreneurship and investing in privacy projects.

Read on for the TL;DR…

Introduction to Nym France

Watch the keynote (French)

Nym COO Alexis Roussel opened with an introduction to the Nym mixnet, work done so far in privacy tech, and our vision for France.

Nym has historical links with France, meaning an official set-up is the natural next step following our “graduation” from the Station F program. A strategic regional approach allows us to localise our work stream through language, culture and economy. With our headquarters in Switzerland and an office in London, Paris is ideally located as a key connector.

In establishing a French entity and therefore being in the EU, there will be an increase in research and development opportunities, strategic partnership opportunities and access to EU research grants. All of these will play a key role in advancing privacy by default across the European digital space.

There is no Web3 without privacy

Watch the full fireside chat (English)

The highlight of the evening was a fireside chat between Chelsea Manning, famous whistleblower and Nym’s Security Consultant with Nym CSO Jaya Klara Brekke. Moderating the session was Paris Bureau Chief of Bloomberg, Alan Katz.

An insightful discussion was held on:

Chelsea’s experience and insights on privacy and surveillance
Ensuring digital technologies serve ordinary people with privacy central to it
The effectiveness of GDPR
AI and cryptography
CBDCs and what it means in terms of surveillance
The data of money and who’s going to control it
Next type of data that may be targeted by governments following Tornado cash and the impact on a broader adoption of privacy

Unlocking the value of privacy

Watch full video (French)

Next was a stellar entrepreneur panel of high profile French Web3 projects. Frédéric Montagnon, Chairman and Co-founder of Arianee and Charles Guillemet, CTO of Ledger joined Harry Halpin, CEO of Nym, diving into the state of privacy and role of businesses and the right business models for securing privacy:

Why privacy is important
The rise of a highly digitalised life
Data leaks and manipulation of data
Is privacy really a priority or just pure marketing
Capitalism by Big Tech
Surveillance capitalism in free services
Barriers to entry for small/medium businesses
The role of entrepreneurs today
Balancing three parameters: Collective interests, regulatory and clients

Moderated by Gregory Raymond, Co-founder of The Big Whale, France’s top Web3 media outlet, the session drew many questions from the interested audience.

How can Web3 advance privacy?

Watch full fireside chat (French)

Nym COO Alexis Roussel and Waffle, BD of Secret Labs explored the technical side of privacy and which tools are available today, including that of Nym and Secret. The fireside chat was moderated by the one and only Blue Touff, Founder of Reflets Info, a French investigative and information hacking online media outlet. Discussion points included:

Exploring uses cases for privacy in Web3
Regulatory issues
Auditable privacy for the user
Breaking cryptography and the Nym network
The role and weakness of VPNs
Data logging in web browsers
Centralised vs decentralised privacy
Transparency in economic transactions
Digital identities

Growing a secure digital ecosystem

Watch the full panel (English)

The evening’s discussions ended with a dynamic investors panel on investing in privacy-preserving projects and how this can ensure a secure digital ecosystem that scales.

On the panel was Luc Jodet, Partner of XAnge, Lior Messika, Founder & Managing Partner of Eden Block, Michiel Lescrauwaet, Managing Director of Tioga Capital Partners, Pierre Husson,Blockchain/Crypto of Bpifrance. The panel was moderated by Fabrice Epelboin, author of the French version of ReadWriteWeb and professor of information warfare at Science Po Paris.

The panel covered:

How privacy is a larger opportunity than Web3 itself
Balancing sovereignty for individuals and profits in the long term
Privacy as an investment: private (VC) and public investment
Backing missionaries and not mercenaries
Pain points across compliance, industries and sectors
How pre-seed/seed funding comes from Europe and then scales in the US
New market disruptors
Justification of returns
Why B2B non-crypto cybersecurity funding is growing

La vie privée

Privacy in French, “la vie privée,” literally translates to “the private life”. Indeed, our lives are now made up of the physical and digital realm, but all too often our integrity in the digital realm is violated.

The mission of Nym is to enable everyone’s right to privacy and digital integrity as the default. The launch of Nym France opens up further community growth and partnerships in the Francophone region uniting a movement to make privacy the default online.

“The way we think of privacy when in the physical realm is often seen as being different from privacy in the digital realm. For instance, it isn’t often very seen as controversial to lock your door or close your blinds. Whereas in the digital realm there’s essentially an entire business structure that’s designed around peeking through the blinds.” Chelsea Manning