France Grants Regulatory Approval For Binance

France effectively became the first major European company to legislate Binance and give the company an official green light to operate. This puts the largest crypto exchange globally, with spot trading volumes of more than $14 billion and nearly $50 billion in derivatives volume daily, ahead of its competitors in Europe.

Prior to receiving the “thumbs up” for operation in France, Binance filed for similar regulatory approval with the Swedish finance watchdog, while also being supervised by Lithuania by the country’s anti-money laundering regulators.

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, spoke on the approval, highlighting that the crypto exchange plans to establish its European base in Paris.

Peace with lawmakers?

Binance is now seeking to make peace with regulators after a year full of backlash from authorities in numerous countries including the U.K., Italy, and Singapore. It seems that the largest crypto exchange to date is now taking the right track toward regulators, as seen with France’s example.

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

A long way to final approval

Binance’s French regulatory approval journey started in late 2021 with the crypto exchange launching a 100-million-euro ($105-million) initiative in France to develop its crypto and blockchain industry and filing for approval.

Shortly after the initiative, the governor of France’s central bank said that Binance must have strong anti-money laundering checks in place if it wants to set up operations in the country.

“We need to be fully scrutinized and audited to pass and that’s for the better because when we’re going to pass, it is going to be a sign of trust, compliance. Our aim is to be 100% compliant in every activity and country we operate”, David Princay, Binance’s French GM stated.

Turbulent times for crypto exchanges

The regulatory scrutiny across developed countries and the contrast of developing nations adopting cryptos at a lightning pace, is placing an enormous stress on the crypto sector. Most of the cryptos in the top-100 list are experiencing a welcomed daily positive push, but the fall from the past week is still evident. Bitcoin, for example, is trying to break above $40,000, currently sitting at $39,462.39 per BTC. Ethereum gained two percent daily, managing to erase its weekly fall, trading at $2,924.01 per ETH.

Source: CryptoBrowser

However, there are still many projects that struggle to recover from last week’s bearish trend.