Overview
- After withdrawing its Greek MiCA application on June 24, Binance paused normal onboarding for EU users and restricted some services as the EU required licences by July 1.
- Binance co‑CEO Richard Teng told reporters that roughly 70% of funds withdrawn by European customers went to self‑hosted wallets and about 30% moved to MiCA‑compliant platforms, with weekly net outflows around $1.23 billion during the transition.
- Teng said Binance remains in close talks with EU regulators, intends to seek authorisation in another member state, and is accelerating licence and partnership efforts in Asia, including a recent Philippines tie‑up.
- MiCA‑authorised rivals such as Coinbase and OKX launched customer incentives to capture migrating users, producing onboarding pressure for licensed venues and reallocating liquidity toward authorised custody providers.
- Regulators designed MiCA to raise consumer protection and anti‑money‑laundering oversight, but the large move to self‑custody shifts custody responsibility to individuals and could reduce supervisory visibility unless policy or transition measures change.