The Paris Blockchain Week conference saw 8,500 attendees this year, up from 1,500 in 2019, and was attended by representatives of companies such as Google, Amazon, and Reddit. This year's conference was held amid nationwide protests in France against legislation to raise the retirement age. The protests were fitting given the state of the crypto sector, which has been rocked by bankruptcies, arrests, and market chaos in recent months. France's crypto ecosystem has grown alongside the Paris Blockchain Week event, which can be partly traced back to the 2014 founding of La Maison du Bitcoin by serial entrepreneur Eric Larchevêque and Thomas France, which later evolved into the crypto investment platform Coinhouse. Despite the sector's travails, French crypto startups like Flowdesk and Ledger claim that things are going well, with Flowdesk having had its best month in March and Ledger recording its highest-ever revenue in November. (Theblock)