European Regulators Examine Binance Reverse Solicitation

The Financial Times reported that European regulators are examining Binance reverse solicitation, the exemption the exchange has used while it seeks permission to operate under the European Union's crypto rulebook. The European Securities and Markets Authority and regulators in France, Germany, and Greece are looking at whether that exemption is being used to keep serving customers in the bloc without authorization. Binance says it complies with the rules that apply and that it is still seeking authorization.

What happened

MiCA is the European Union's regulation on markets in crypto-assets. For firms that want to serve customers in the bloc as a business, MiCA is the authorization regime: a firm gets permission, and that permission is what lets it solicit and serve the market. Reverse solicitation is a narrow exemption from that picture. It covers the customer who goes to a non-EU firm on the customer's own initiative. The firm did not go looking. The customer did.

Both accounts of the Financial Times report describe the exemption the same way. It is for customers who approach a non-EU firm on their own initiative. It is not meant to be a way around MiCA. A bypass would be using the exemption as a standing channel to keep a European book, rather than as a response to an unsolicited approach. The examination, as reported, is about whether Binance's use of the exemption has stayed on the right side of that line. An examination is a look by regulators. It is not, in these pages, a fine, a ban, or a finding.

The regulators named are ESMA and the national authorities in France, Germany, and Greece. ESMA is the European Securities and Markets Authority, the EU body that coordinates securities supervision. National authorities license and supervise firms in their own countries. The report puts all four on the same question: Binance's use of the reverse-solicitation exemption to keep serving EU customers without authorization. "Without authorization" is the status the report is testing, not a conclusion this article adds. The firm does not, on these accounts, hold the MiCA permission the examination is about.

Binance told both outlets it complies with applicable rules and is still seeking MiCA authorization. Compliance, in that sentence, is the company's position. Seeking authorization is a separate fact: the application, or the effort, is not finished.

Details that appear in only one write-up are not used. That includes any account of a single country's application being pulled, any count of an ESMA register, any lapsed local registration, any affiliate in another financial center, and any figure for a possible fine. The shared facts are the examination, the countries, the purpose of the exemption, and Binance's response.

Why it matters

Reverse solicitation is one of the last doors in a regime that otherwise tells non-EU crypto firms to get authorized or to stop seeking EU customers. If the door is wide, a large exchange can keep a European client base while the license is pending. If the door is narrow, those clients have to be people who truly arrived on their own, and the firm cannot recruit them. The examination is a test of which description fits Binance. The two outlets agree the exemption is not supposed to be a bypass. They do not, in the facts used here, report a decision that it was one.

Who is in the room matters. ESMA plus France, Germany, and Greece is not a single national supervisor acting alone. It is the coordinating authority and three member-state regulators. A firm that holds different local relationships in different countries can meet one supervisor at a time. A coordinated look is harder to answer with a single local registration. This article does not describe those local registrations. It describes the scope of the look the Financial Times reported, as both pages relay it.

Binance's answer is on the record with both outlets, and it should be quoted only as far as the record goes. The firm says it complies with applicable rules. The firm says it is still seeking MiCA authorization. "Applicable rules" is the company's phrase for the standard it says it meets. Which rule, article by article, is not unpacked here.

For customers in the European Union the practical question is status, not a slogan. An examination is not an order to close accounts. It is also not a comfort letter. Until a regulator publishes an outcome, the public facts are that the use of the exemption is under scrutiny, that the exemption is meant for unsolicited approaches, and that authorization is still being sought. Anyone who needs more than that is ahead of these two stories.

Related: Circle MiCA review and Hyperliquid MiCA policy.

What's next

The examination continues, on the reporting, until the authorities say what they found. Possible outcomes that are not in these pages include a public finding, a requirement to change how clients are taken on, or a grant of the authorization Binance says it is seeking. Inventing which outcome is likely would be a guess. The shared present tense is: regulators are examining, and the firm says it complies and is still applying.

France, Germany, and Greece are the member states named, together with ESMA. A later story that added or dropped a country would be new. So would any decision on the MiCA application. Until then, Binance reverse solicitation is an exemption under scrutiny, not a closed case and not a granted passport.

Readers who want the company's position have it from both outlets, in the same terms. Readers who want the regulators' position have the fact of the examination and the stated purpose of the exemption, not a concluding document. Cointelegraph's account is here. Decrypt's account is here.