While the American arm of the world's largest Bitcoin exchange Binance, has been under constant fire, the crisis is now reaching Europe. As the company posted on its website on the morning of June 16 announced, Binance is closing its operations in the Netherlands.

The press release states the following:

"We regret to inform you that Binance is exiting the Dutch market. Effective immediately, no new users residing in the Netherlands will be accepted."

As of now, users who are already registered can only withdraw assets, but cannot transfer money to the platform. The exchange is also stopping trading effective immediately.

Missing license

The background is a missing license as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) in the Netherlands. According to its own statement, the Dutch financial regulator never granted Binance the necessary license, despite "an extensive application process."

But the world's largest crypto exchange is unlikely to pull out of Europe altogether. Indeed, the group has already secured one of the coveted crypto licenses in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania. There, it is fully regulated and meets all legal requirements such as anti-money laundering guidelines and anti-terrorist financing requirements.

The company also gave its support to the MiCA regulatory framework which was recently adopted.

Binance: fines for missing licenses

In April 2022, De Nederlandsche Bank imposed a hold on Binance fine at €3.325 million. The reason was the lack of a license.

At least the fine was reduced by five percent because Binance subsequently applied for the necessary license.

Recently, the company came under fire from the SEC in the US. The US Securities and Exchange Commission accused the company's US division of embezzlement and sued the exchange. Only a short time later, Binance.US shut down its operations almost completely; stortingen in USD are no longer possible.