The ecosystem counts thousands of tools. This module organises them by use. Two distinctions structure everything: third-party custody vs self-custody (who holds the keys?) and centralised vs decentralised (who runs the service?).
3.1Wallets
The entry point to the ecosystem.
- Software (hot wallets): MetaMask, Rabby, Phantom (Solana), Trust Wallet: convenient, permanently connected, and therefore more exposed.
- Hardware (cold wallets): Ledger (French, more than 7 million devices sold, ~20% of the world's crypto-assets secured), Trezor: the keys never leave the device.
Advantages: full sovereignty over your assets. Limits: full responsibility: lose your recovery phrase, and the funds are unrecoverable.
3.2Exchange platforms
- Centralised (CEX): Binance, Coinbase, Kraken; in France: Coinhouse, Paymium. Simple, liquid, regulated (MiCA), but you entrust them with your funds (remember FTX).
- Decentralised (DEX): Uniswap, Curve, Hyperliquid. Peer-to-peer trading through smart contracts, with no deposit, but with a learning curve and technical risks.
3.3Decentralised finance (DeFi)
Lending/borrowing (Aave, Morpho, a French protocol that became a unicorn in 2026), trading (Uniswap), decentralised stablecoins (DAI/Sky), liquid staking (Lido). All composable: protocols fit together like financial Lego bricks.
Advantages: open to all, transparent, permissionless. Limits: smart contract bugs, sometimes misleading yields, regulation still being built.
3.4Stablecoins
Tokens backed by a currency (1 token = 1 dollar or 1 euro): USDT (Tether, ~$190bn in circulation), USDC (Circle, ~$78bn), EURCV (Société Générale-FORGE, in euros), and soon Qivalis (a consortium of European banks). This is the most massive use of blockchain today: more than $320 billion in circulation and 250 million holders.
3.5NFTs, gaming and culture
Marketplaces (OpenSea, Blur, Magic Eden), games and collections (Sorare, the French fantasy football unicorn; The Sandbox, co-founded by French entrepreneurs), ticketing, digital art. Real uses beyond speculation: ownership of digital objects, artist royalties, communities.
3.6Certification, identity and traceability
A discreet but solid use case: anchoring a tamper-proof proof on a public chain: diplomas and certificates (the EFE and many schools certify on blockchain), documents, artworks, traceability in food or luxury goods (the Aura consortium: LVMH, Prada…), land registries. Here the blockchain serves as a time-stamped digital notary.
3.7Explorers and analytics
Everything is public: explorers (Etherscan, Mempool.space) let anyone verify any transaction; analytics firms (Chainalysis, TRM Labs, the French company Kaiko for market data) map the flows, including for the police and tax authorities.
3.8Tools for developers
Nodes-as-a-service (Alchemy, Infura), languages (Solidity, Rust), oracles (Chainlink), and layer 2s (Arbitrum, Optimism, Coinbase's Base) to deploy at lower cost.
How to choose?
Three questions: Who holds the keys? (a beginner will often start with a regulated platform, then move to self-custody for large amounts); What is the real need? (payment, saving, certification, experimentation); What level of risk? (never commit more than you can afford to lose, the absolute rule of this ecosystem).
Sources
Global Legal Insights, overview of the French ecosystem (2026); SQ Magazine, Asset Tokenization Statistics 2026 (sqmagazine.co.uk); MarketScreener on Ledger (marketscreener.com).
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