Binance Goes to France

As we know, one of the biggest obstacles to acquiring bitcoin is having an avenue to do so. Similarly, the more regulated exchanges there are in your country, the more likely the product will be top-notch purely because of competition. Binance just secured regulatory approval in France. Let’s take a closer look at the details.

• As of May 4, Binance secured regulatory approval in France.
• Binance will now be allowed to custody digital assets in France. Additionally, they may now facilitate the purchases and sales of such assets.
• Binance is expanding its global operations – having also just obtained provisional approval to operate as a broker-dealer in virtual assets in Abu Dhabi this March-April.
• Binance invested $108 million in its operations in France. They created a partnership with Paris-based startup incubator Station F.
• As Binance continues to expand, they were forced to change its initial philosophy. Binance’s CEO said that its initial philosophy was a decentralized one.
• By this, he meant no offices, no headquarters, or corporate entities. For the sake of licenses to expand, they are now temporarily based in the Cayman Islands (originally in Hong Kong before the ban on crypto trading).

While there were multiple exchanges available in France, the only big player (top 10 by volume) was Coinbase. With more established exchanges comes more word of mouth and advertisement. This sort of expansion can only be good for crypto as a whole.