Loading today’s stories
Invest1 distinct publisher2 min readUpdated
Independent testing says new European accounts were opened, verified and funded in mid-August, seven weeks past the MiCA cutoff. The exchange appears on neither of ESMA's two lists.
The Investor · Invest desk
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Passporting is the part of MiCA that makes this an enforcement problem rather than a drafting one. One national regulator authorizes a crypto-asset service provider, and the licence then works across the European Economic Area [3]. The reward for granting sits with a single member state; the cost of policing a firm that never got authorized is spread across all the rest.
Binance told users in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Belgium and Sweden that new registrations, deposits and certain yield products would be limited from July 1 [7], and said it would pursue authorization in another EU jurisdiction [8]. For a firm in that position, ESMA's instruction is narrow: activity should be confined mainly to helping existing clients exit [5].
Sandmark's dated test account puts 49 days between the deadline and a new, fully verified European customer able to receive crypto [1]. None of the registration flows it ran displayed any notice that the exchange lacks MiCA authorization [11], which is the least expensive obligation on the list and the one a firm actually winding down would have the least reason to skip.
The control in the experiment is the more informative half. A connection from the United States was routed to Binance.US, with deposits and trading disabled [13]. European connections progressed through onboarding whether or not a VPN was in use [9]. So the capacity to sort users by location and stop them exists in the product and is switched on for one jurisdiction [3].
On the European record, meanwhile, nothing has happened in either direction. The exchange is on neither the register of authorized providers nor the list of entities flagged for unauthorized activity [2], which leaves the largest exchange by trading volume [1] in a category the framework does not really maintain. That silence is doing work. Every firm that did get authorized accepted the July 1 halt on onboarding, the stop on marketing to EU residents and a wind-down plan as the price of the licence [4]. A firm larger by volume than any of them [4] continued to take signups, according to the mid-August testing, and has been asked to explain none of it.
The interesting question for anyone who did comply is not whether Binance eventually files somewhere else. It is what the register now measures. Right now it records which firms chose to be inside the regime, not which firms are subject to it.
Follow any of these and your For You feed starts watching them — no settings page required.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
Reports indicate Binance has continued to allow new customers from European Union countries to open and verify accounts well after the July 1, 2026 deadline under the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation.
Independent testing in mid-August 2026 by crypto analysis platform Sandmark found restrictions on new accounts had not been fully implemented; staff registered and completed KYC using European identity documents and residential addresses from Austria, France, Germany, Spain and Belgium, both with and without VPNs.
Binance remains the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume.
MiCA requires crypto-asset service providers to obtain authorization from a national regulator in one member state, which then enables passporting of services across the entire European Economic Area.
Firms lacking MiCA approval were instructed to halt new client onboarding, stop marketing to EU residents, and implement orderly wind-down plans by the deadline.
ESMA emphasized that unauthorized entities must restrict activities primarily to facilitating client exits while protecting user interests and market integrity.
Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
Specific and dated, but one outlet relaying one tester
The cluster's strengths are specificity: a named tester, five named member states, a dated August 19 account that was verified and funded, named ESMA registers with an approximate firm count, and an on-record Binance response. Its weaknesses are structural. A single publisher carries every claim; Sandmark's protocol and sample size are not disclosed beyond 'at least two cases'; no regulator is quoted on Binance's status; and no primary document (register extract, notice text, terms of service) is reproduced. That supports the narrow factual assertions while leaving the systemic reading — that EU onboarding is broadly open — under-evidenced.
MiCA regime operating; documented breach narrow
Adoption is legible on the regime side: roughly 330 firms sit on ESMA's authorized register, Austria's FMA has issued a first MiCA fine, and Binance itself rolled out July 1 limits across six named member states, so the framework is in live operation. Adoption of the story's specific phenomenon is much thinner — a handful of test accounts, at least two fully verified, one dated and funded. Real user volumes onboarded after the deadline, and any regulator action against Binance, are not disclosed anywhere in the cluster.
Modestly overstated: small-n tests generalized to a standing practice
Framing is hedged ('reports indicate', 'tests indicate') and the 49-day arithmetic is sound, so this is not inflation of the headline kind. The gap is one of generalization: a present-continuous claim that EU users are 'still verifying' rests on at least two fully verified test accounts from one analysis platform. Two mitigating facts in the cluster itself are under-weighted — Binance appears on no ESMA warning list, and Binance explicitly invokes jurisdiction-specific transitional rules and product-level variation that the article does not test against. Neither is disproven, but neither is examined.
Interested parties on both sides of the finding
The cluster discloses enough to score this without inference. Binance has a direct commercial stake in continued EU access — it is the largest venue by volume, states it intends to secure authorization in another member state, frames restrictions as jurisdiction- and product-dependent, and declines to discuss specific onboarding cases. The finding's originator is a commercial crypto analysis platform whose visibility benefits from publishing such tests, and the article's only substantive counter-voice is Binance's own statement. What the cluster does not disclose is any funding, client relationship or competitive positioning behind Sandmark, so the score stays mid-range rather than high.
Moderate-low: plausible and specific, uncorroborated
Confidence is limited chiefly by source concentration. One trade publication relaying one tester's unreplicated results, with no regulator on record and a partial corporate response, means the narrow claims are credible but the interpretive claim — an ongoing compliance breach by the largest exchange — cannot be settled from this cluster. Corroboration by a second tester, an ESMA or national-authority statement, or documentation of MiCA transitional applicability would move this materially in either direction.
invest
Binance wants back into the UK, and the FCA now has to price an $8bn sanctions file1 distinct publisher
invest
Binance handed Russia's FSB the donor trail in a $6,500 terrorism case1 distinct publisher
invest
MiCA's vault problem: four roles, and no obvious provider to regulate1 distinct publisher
invest
Binance's friendliest jurisdiction is now the one where its staff get picked up1 distinct publisher
Distinct publishers with included, body-backed reporting in this cluster.