France's second-largest banking group BPCE just made a bold move—they're rolling out crypto trading directly through their banking apps. Starting now, 2 million retail customers can buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and USDC without leaving their familiar banking interface.

What's striking here? BPCE isn't testing the waters with some half-hearted pilot program. They're planning to scale this service to 12 million customers by 2026. That's roughly one-sixth of France's entire population getting native crypto access through a traditional banking giant.

This marks a shift in how established financial institutions are approaching digital assets. Rather than treating crypto as a separate fintech experiment, BPCE is integrating it into core retail banking services—the same platforms customers use for mortgages and savings accounts. The choice of assets is telling too: alongside the obvious BTC and ETH, they're offering Solana (a layer-1 darling) and USDC (the regulated stablecoin), signaling they're tracking what actually moves in the market.

For context, BPCE manages over €1.7 trillion in assets and serves 36 million customers globally. When institutions of this scale commit to crypto infrastructure, it's not just about offering another product—it's about legitimizing digital assets as a permanent fixture in mainstream finance.