Binance Says It Will Stay in Europe Despite Greece License Failure as MiCA Deadline Looms

Binance says it is not planning to leave Europe after failing to secure a license in Greece, and is now looking at other routes to authorization in the EU. For PSPs and crypto merchants, the immediate issue is simple: under MiCA, firms without a license by the end of June cannot keep operating in the bloc.

1. Gillian Lynch, Binance’s head of Europe and the United Kingdom, told Reuters that “Binance is not leaving Europe,” adding: “We may just have a different pathway to being authorized. If it is not Greece, I’m looking at other alternatives.” The company had been seeking permission to offer services such as crypto trading in Greece.
2. Reuters said Binance has a week to secure a license before its permission to do business in Europe expires, which would force it to shut down EU operations. The report also said this stance could put the company on a collision course with European regulators.
3. Two sources familiar with Binance’s efforts told Reuters the company had discussed licensing in Greece, Ireland and Latvia, but met resistance in each jurisdiction. The cited concerns were Binance’s past money-laundering penalties, its complicated international structure and what regulators saw as a culture of risk-taking.
4. Lynch said Binance did not know why approval had been denied in Greece and had previously expected the Greek regulator to grant the license. She also said the company had invested in compliance and internal controls, including a compliance team of around 1,500 people, and had no outstanding issues tied to the application.
5. MiCA, the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, sets the deadline. According to the report, crypto companies without a license by the end of June will not be allowed to continue operating in the bloc. A mid-June CryptoSlate report said 194 crypto firms were licensed under MiCA as of May, while 3,000 registered crypto firms were operating across the EU.

The thing for high-risk operators is that MiCA is turning licensing from a compliance project into a business-continuity issue. If a major venue like Binance is still working through national approval paths in Greece, Ireland and Latvia, the same regime will matter even more to PSPs, acquirers and banking partners deciding which crypto clients they are willing to keep on the books.