Binance's EU Retreat Opens Door for Licensed Rivals

The world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume said new sign-ups, deposits, orders and staking products will be frozen for EU users, although existing customer funds remain safe and withdrawable. Binance says it plans to seek authorization through another member state and return within months.

The suspension caps nearly three years of regulatory setbacks across Europe, where Binance has repeatedly withdrawn from markets or abandoned registrations before the MiCA deadline.

Binance co-founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao said the suspension was "a loss for Binance" and "a loss for Europe," arguing in a podcast interview that the exchange's licence application had at one stage been deemed compliant and that two EU member states had competed to host the company before political considerations derailed the process.

Binance's European base

The more important question is how much business Binance stands to lose.

The exchange ran around a third of spot trading across major venues in early 2026 and booked $16.8bn in revenue in 2024, according to Bloomberg. However, euro pairs make up only about 1.0% of its global spot volume, as per CryptoQuant data. 

Data from Kaiko Research, shows Amsterdam-based Bitvavo handled roughly 44% of euro-denominated spot volume across 2025-2026 at €290mn in average daily trades, with Kraken responsible for 20% and Coinbase with 13%, leaving Binance to split the remaining approximately 23% with OKX and smaller venues. 

The report, commissioned by Bitvavo, found that Binance listed just 43 euro trading pairs over the period – against Bitvavo's 440 and Kraken's 450 euro pairs – and concentrating roughly €100mn of daily flow into a limited selection. 

Binance's strongest foothold is in euro-denominated stablecoins, holding about 27% of EUR-backed stablecoin volume in the first quarter of 2026, just behind venues Aerodrome and Bullish. 

Binance, however, says it serves more users in Europe than any rival. In Spain alone, El Pais estimates around 500,000 accounts could close, while French newspaper Le Monde reported that customers had pulled roughly €400mn from the platform as the deadline approached.

A compliance shadow

MiCA's "fit and proper" test for owners and managers sits at the centre of why Binance struggled where rivals passed. 

The exchange carries a tainted regulatory record around anti-money laundering checks and sanctions. In 2023, it agreed to a $4.3bn settlement with US authorities over anti-money laundering and sanctions failures, one of the largest corporate penalties on record, while CZ pleaded guilty and paid a $50mn personal fine.

US prosecutors found Binance had failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions, including activity tied to designated terrorist groups, and had for years let users trade with little more than an email address before tightening Know Your Customer checks in 2021 and 2022.

Binance's relationship with European regulators had already been tested well before the MiCA deadline. Belgium's FSMA ordered it to halt services in June 2023, only for Binance to accept new terms and resume there three months later. Binance's withdrawal from the Netherlands in July 2023, after it failed to secure a local registration, proved permanent, as did its decision later that same year to surrender its Cyprus registration as part of its preparations for MiCA.

Binance held registrations across the Eurozone prior to the MiCA deadline as a digital-asset provider in France and Italy, and as a virtual-asset provider in Spain, Poland and Sweden. None have yet substituted these registrations for the MiCA licence now required to passport services across the bloc. 

Rivals move in

Many of Binance's major competitors obtained licences early, frontrunning the deadline for implementation. Coinbase secured a MiCA licence through Luxembourg, while Kraken won authorization via the central bank of Ireland and Bitvavo obtained a licence through Dutch regulators, all in June 2025. OKX cleared its Malta licence months earlier, in January 2025. 

In light of Binance's exit, its rivals have swooped in, trying to woo Binance's stranded users. OKX is offering eligible users up to 8% of deposit matching on transferred assets, capped at €20,000. Coinbase is dangling a 5% transfer bonus, and Kraken has launched a €1mn prize draw for deposits made through July.