Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has been granted approval by French regulators to operate its cryptocurrency exchange in France.
Binance is now listed as a registered digital asset service provider by the French stock market watchdog AMF (Autorité des marchés financiers). This means that the crypto exchange can offer trading and custody services for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Binance is the largest crypto exchange globally. The company handles spot trading volumes of more than $18 billion and more than $60 billion in derivatives volume in a single day, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
What you should know
- The move makes France the first major European nation to give Binance the greenlight. The company is supervised in Lithuania by the country’s anti-money laundering regulators and is also seeking registration with the Swedish finance watchdog.
- Binance has no official headquarters, and once took pride in this fact. But the company is now seeking to make peace with regulators after a backlash last year from authorities in numerous countries including the U.K., Italy and Singapore.
- Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO and founder, told CNBC last month that the company plans to establish its European base in Paris.
- Zhao gave a keynote at a crypto industry event in Paris last month to debut a new accelerator program for so-called “Web3” start-ups. The firm also committed to invest 100 million euros ($105 million) in the country.
- Binance’s billionaire CEO described France as “very progressive” in adopting crypto. He also stated, “In our interactions with them, they are far more advanced in their understanding, and they’re also much more progressive in their attitudes.”
Binance in a report by CryptoCompare captured 30% of spot volume market share in March. The market share rose from 29% in February.
The report stated that the exchange handled $490 billion of spot trades in March, a 15% increase from the month prior. Binance was followed by Coinbase (COIN) at $81.9 billion (down 12%) and OKX with $75.9 billion (down 26%), which both accounted for 5% and 4.7% of the market share.
Binance has been seeing regulatory approval all over the world, especially in the Middle East in recent times. The approval gotten in France is an important step to Binance becoming the dominate exchange in the cryptocurrency space as more volume from Europe is set to come in through the exchange. However, FTX exchange has also been expanding its reach as the firm is following closely behind Binance to get regulatory approvals all over the world.
