France Leads MiCA Enforcement — and Binance Is the First to Feel It

🇫🇷 France Turns Up the Heat on Binance — as Europe Tightens the MiCA Net

France has launched an aggressive series of anti-money laundering inspections targeting Binance, Coinhouse, and dozens of other crypto exchanges. The move marks a decisive shift from passive oversight to active enforcement — just as Europe races to implement its new MiCA regime.

🧩 France Leads Europe’s Crypto Compliance Crackdown

The French prudential supervision authority, ACPR, has been quietly conducting on-site AML inspections of digital asset providers since late 2024. Its goal: determine which firms will be eligible for EU-wide MiCA operating permits — and which ones won’t make the cut.

Among those under scrutiny is Binance France, which was instructed to strengthen its internal risk controls following ACPR’s audit.

“Periodic onsite inspections are a standard part of supervision,” Binance said — though behind that corporate calm, the pressure is unmistakable.

These checks focus on whether firms meet the conditions of PSAN (prestataire de services sur actifs numériques) registration, particularly in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing. Failure to comply could trigger sanctions or disqualification from obtaining a MiCA license — the golden ticket allowing companies to operate seamlessly across all 27 EU member states.

So far, only four companies — Deblock, GOin, Bitstack, and Credit Agricole’s CACEIS — have passed the test.

🧱 Binance’s French Balancing Act

For Binance, France is more than just a market — it’s a lifeline into Europe.

After Changpeng Zhao’s 2023 guilty plea in the U.S., Binance had to restructure its French entity in May 2024, replacing Zhao’s ownership with two new shareholders, Yulong Yan and Lihua He, to stay compliant with French law prohibiting criminally tied major shareholders.

The move was part of a “global restructuring project” to align with MiCA’s new framework. Even so, Binance continues to face two active investigations by French prosecutors — one for alleged money laundering, another for unauthorized advertising.

ACPR’s demands often include hiring additional compliance officers, reinforcing IT security, and submitting detailed action plans within months.

The data from these inspections flows to the AMF (Autorité des marchés financiers), the regulator responsible for issuing final MiCA permits.

🌍 A Europe-Wide Enforcement Puzzle

France isn’t acting alone. Regulators in Austria and Italy have urged the EU’s top markets watchdog, ESMA, to directly supervise major crypto companies, citing inconsistent MiCA enforcement standards.

The inconsistencies are already showing. In June 2023, Coinbase paid $100 million to settle compliance failures with New York’s DFS — including $50 million in penalties and another $50 million to overhaul its AML systems. By contrast, in Europe, enforcement remains fragmented.

Even now, OKX faces potential penalties after hackers laundered $100 million in stolen Bybit funds through its Web3 platform. But regulators are still debating whether OKX’s structure even falls within MiCA’s jurisdiction — a sign that the bloc’s regulatory map remains unfinished.

🏗️ Meanwhile, France Tokenizes the Real Economy

Ironically, while cracking down on crypto exchanges, France is also pioneering regulated digital finance. In October, the country approved Lightning Stock Exchange (Lise) — its first fully tokenized equity exchange — under the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime.

Lise combines the functions of a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) and Central Securities Depository (CSD) on a single distributed ledger, enabling instant settlement of tokenized shares. The platform aims to host its first IPOs in early 2026, targeting small and mid-cap firms historically locked out of traditional markets.

This approval positions France at the forefront of Europe’s tokenization revolution, with real-world asset (RWA) tokenization surpassing $33.9 billion, up 10% month-over-month.

The same regulators tightening crypto rules are building the infrastructure for digital finance — a paradox only Europe could create.

⚖️ From Compliance to Competitiveness

The next 18 months will define who survives Europe’s crypto reshuffle.

Under MiCA, registered entities must transition to fully licensed status by June 2026, with every process — from AML to custody — benchmarked against EU-wide standards.

Firms that fail to satisfy the ACPR will lose not just the French market, but the entire European Economic Area. For Binance, that risk is existential. For others, it’s an opportunity — to fill the compliance vacuum left behind by those unable to adapt.

🔮 The Outlook: The Great European Sorting

France’s inspections are not random raids — they’re the first wave of a continental stress test. The goal is simple: clean the pipeline before MiCA opens the floodgates.

Binance may survive this phase — its compliance arm now counts over 1,200 employees, with spending projected to rise 33% this year — but the message from regulators is clear: Europe wants transparency before growth, compliance before capital.

As 2025 unfolds, the continent that once feared crypto anarchy is now designing its own regulated version of it. And France, ever the perfectionist, wants to be the model student — even if it means making Binance the example.