France has begun tougher money laundering checks on crypto exchanges ahead of MiCA licensing, zeroing in on Binance besides Coinbase. The outcome will decide whether each firm keeps or loses the right to serve every EU customer from one base. If Paris blocks foreign licences, the promise of a single EU rulebook could fracture.
French officials opened a full review that mixes national rules with the EU’s Fifth Anti-Money-Laundering Directive. Staff must check passports or ID cards, ask for proof of where a customer’s money and wider wealth come from, watch every later transaction and send a Suspicious Activity Report to Tracfin whenever something looks odd. The stated aim is to stop firms from shopping for the weakest supervisor inside Europe.
The checks verify compliance with conditions for PSAN (digital asset service provider) registration, particularly testing anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing controls.
Diverging stakes for Binance and Coinbase
Binance is in deeper trouble. Police already tie the platform to suspected crime and say its own controls were weak from 2019 through 2024. France now warns it will refuse to recognise a Binance licence even if another EU country grants one, breaking the “passport” that lets a firm trade across all twenty seven states.
Coinbase plays a different hand. It already holds a MiCA licence and moved its EU head office to Luxembourg. France treats the inspection as a standard audit, not a criminal probe.
MiCA started in June 2023 and became fully binding on 30 December 2024. It was meant to give every provider the same rule book and a single passport, but if Paris blocks foreign licences, that uniform plan splits apart.
France will finish the inspections and say who keeps a licence. That verdict will show whether MiCA still gives one single market or cracks into separate national cages.
