The French Language Enrichment Commission dives into the world of crypto.
New incursion of the commission for the enrichment of the French language, this time in the lexical field of economy and finance. A list of Frenchified terms was published in the Official Journal of January 22, 2022, as follows was raised on Twitter. Among the terms that now benefit from an official translation are several expressions coming from crypto.
The most common of them, “crypto currency” (or “cryptocurrency”) is translated by “cybermone”, a term already used in France, with other formulations, such as “virtual currency”, “cryptocurrency” and “currency digital”. However, the commission does not recommend them – especially the last one, because the word “digital” does not mean digital in French.
Cybercurrency includes all cybertokens of the same nature that can be used for payments, like currency that is legal tender, according to the definition provided by the commission. To acquire cybertokens, you must go through an exchange platform that allows you to buy or sell cybertokens, but also to convert them from one cybercurrency to another.
Stablecoin, tokenization, CBDC
The commission provides a translation for “tokenization” (or “tokenization”), with two formulations to choose from: conversion into tokens or securitization into cybertokens. The cybertoken serves as a unit of account in the event of a splitting of the asset into shares, it is explained. She adds that this issue facilitates the partial or total sale of the asset.
We also increasingly come across the term “stablecoin” or, more rarely, “asset-referenced token”. In French, this translates to “indexed cyberjeton” or “indexed token”. Attempts to translate such as “stable cryptocurrency” and “stable token” are, however, to be avoided. As we can guess, these are currencies whose particularity is much more stable.
In this regard, the commission explains that these are cybertokens “ whose value is fixed with reference to a currency, a basket of currencies, or, more generally, a portfolio of assets “. For example, there is the USDC (US Dollar Coin), which is a cybercurrency pegged to the US dollar. A USDC token is always worth one dollar.
Finally, central banks issuing currencies in digital form are also entitled to a specific term: Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC, or simply “central bank digital currency”. In this case, we can note the project of a digital euro, whose profile may be reminiscent of bitcoin, but with much lower volatility.