Coinbase Plants Its MiCA Flag in Luxembourg 🇱🇺 While Binance Plays Musical Chairs

Coinbase formally opened a Luxembourg office on June 24, designating the Grand Duchy as its European Union hub under the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA. The launch comes more than a year after Coinbase secured its license from Luxembourg's Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in June 2025, and now positions Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. on ESMA's register of approved firms. Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad appeared alongside Luxembourg Finance Minister Gilles Roth at the opening, with Shirzad stating that Luxembourg "has established itself as the EU's leading hub for institutional crypto and tokenization." The single license grants Coinbase access to more than 450 million people across the EU's 27 member states, building on its existing national authorizations in six countries, including Germany and France, and its Nasdaq listing since 2021.

The opening sharpens the contrast with Binance, which confirmed this week that its MiCA license application in Greece has collapsed, leaving the exchange absent from ESMA's register ahead of the July 1 deadline. Binance's regulatory standing has been under scrutiny since 2023, when the company pleaded guilty in the United States to money-laundering and sanctions violations and paid more than $4.3 billion, one of the largest corporate penalties in US history. Founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in the same proceeding and resigned as chief executive. The exchange says it intends to seek approval in another EU member state and points to roughly 1,500 compliance personnel worldwide. "Binance is not leaving Europe," Gillian Lynch, Binance's head of Europe and UK, told Reuters.

More than 230 firms have now cleared MiCA approval and can continue serving EU customers, with Coinbase joined on the ESMA list by competitors including Kraken. Binance's return to the bloc now depends on persuading a new national regulator that its compliance program matches its scale.