France has become the first major European country to give regulatory approval to Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume.

Binance is now listed as a registered digital assets service provider after the country’s financial regulator, the AMF, updated its list yesterday (4 May).

This comes after the China-founded crypto exchange faced significant challenges last year when regulators around the world cracked down on its business as they got more wary of cryptocurrencies and their potential negative impacts.

UK watchdog Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned Binance from operating in the country in June 2021, within a week after Japan and the Canadian province of Ontario made similar moves. A month later, Italy joined in, banning even services provided through the Binance main website.

European HQ

While founded in China by CEO Changpeng Zhao, Binance later moved its headquarters to the Cayman Islands after China began to crack down on the crypto industry with strict regulations, eventually banning even mining in the country – causing the bitcoin to tumble. It is not clear where the exchange is headquartered now.

According to CNBC, Binance is supervised in Lithuania by the country’s anti-money laundering regulators and is also seeking registration in Sweden.

Zhao recently said he has plans to establish a European base for Binance in Paris – where he gave a keynote speech last month to announce a new accelerator programme for Web3 start-ups and a commitment to invest €100m in the “very progressive” country’s blockchain ecosystem.

“In our interactions with them, they are far more advanced in their understanding, and they’re also much more progressive in their attitudes,” he told CNBC. “France is a very strict regulator. But they have the advanced understandings to go with that.”

Ireland was one of the countries in the running for the new Binance European headquarters, where it has a registered company and is expanding its services.

In March, Binance announced it was reopening euro and British pound transfers via SEPA and FPS after temporarily suspending them last year. It also banned Russian nationals and companies from making deposits or trading on the platform, following EU sanctions.

News of this big win for crypto comes as it sees some favour across the Atlantic as well. The governor of California signed an executive order on crypto yesterday, aligning the state with proposals put forward by Biden earlier this year.

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