WSJ reports: European Central Bank Governor Lagarde intervenes and blocks the issuance of Binance EU MiCA licenses

A spokesperson for Binance recently said that the company is actively seeking to obtain an EU crypto asset market regulation (MiCA) authorization and sees it as a significant step towards providing consistent, regulated and trusted services to users in the European market. This statement was confirmed by Binance .

Greece's application is rejected and business begins to shrink

In mid-June of this year, Binance withdrew its application for a MiCA license in Greece and began to phase out local operations. The reason was that the HCMC officials decided at the last minute not to approve Binance .

However, in an interview with CoinDesk at the beginning of July, Gillian Lynch, head of Binance Europe, emphasized that the exchange had met all HCMC's requirements. She said: "Our application was found to be complete, there were no missing items and no major issues remained unresolved".

ESMA has privately advised member states to reject applications

The Wall Street Journal reported that the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) had privately advised national financial regulators to reject Binance 's MiCA application, citing concerns about past compliance issues at the exchange.

This background involves the legal record of Binance 's founders in the United States: Changpeng "CZ" Zhao pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) in the U.S. in 2023, agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine, served four months in California in 2024 and was pardoned by President Donald Trump in October 2025.[2]

Assignment of supervisory powers: ECB does not have the power to approve

In response, a spokesperson for the European Central Bank (ECB) declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk and explained that the ECB has no institutional role in authorizing crypto asset service providers (CASPs). The power of approval still resides with national supervisory authorities.

Follow-up

MiCA is the EU's unified crypto asset regulatory framework, and obtaining an authorization means that exchanges can operate in compliance throughout the European Economic Area. This is crucial to the Binance strategy for Europe. The real reasons behind Greece's rejection of its application, whether or not it will be redirected to other member states to re-submit applications, and whether ESMA's statements would affect approval progress in other countries are next in focus.