The popular crypto-exchange Binance said there is a likelihood that by June 2024, it could delist all stablecoins in the European market, Bitcoin safely.
The reason is its compliance with MiCa (Markets in Crypto Assets) regulation.
Binance: yes Bitcoin, but likely to delist all stablecoins from the crypto-exchange in the European market
Binance revealed that probably by June 2024, all stablecoins for the European market could be delisted from the crypto-exchange. This would bring the crypto-exchange into compliance with the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation, which is working on this very issue.
Marina Parthuisot, legal manager of Binance France, said in an online public hearing hosted by the EBA (European Banking Authority) as follows:
“We are heading to a delisting of all stablecoins in Europe on June 30. This could have a significant impact on the market in Europe compared to the rest of the world.”
Hence, MiCA is apparently proceeding together with the EBA and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to make new provisions on stablecoins, without serving any “penalty” even to those already in the market.
Stablecoins are all those cryptos whose value is pegged to other assets such as fiat currency, or gold. The stablecoin with the largest market capitalization is Tether (USDT), followed by USD Coin (USDC) and Dai (DAI) and Binance USD (BUSD).
It should be mentioned that MiCA intends to make the EU the first major jurisdiction in the world with comprehensive cryptocurrency regulation, allowing exchanges and wallet providers to operate across the bloc with a single license.
Binance: Changpeng Zhao’s statement calls the present a fake news
While all the journals reported Parthuisot’s statement about the stablecoin delist, Changpeng CZ Zhao, the CEO of Binance, reportedly intervened, casting doubt on the news.
Basically, CZ commented on the news starting with the number “4,” his usual shorthand for accusing attacks and fake news. Not only that, CZ wanted to alert the crypto-community that Binance is launching EUR and other stablecoins together with a couple of partners, in a fully compliant way.
Binance and MiCA: previous changes to comply with European regulation
The fact that there is a possibility that Binance could delist all stablecoins in the European market in order to be MiCA compliant is not so impossible.
In fact, already before, the popular crypto-exchange had to make changes to precisely comply with the European crypto regulation.
Such as that of having withdrawn its application for a crypto custody operator license in Germany in July 2023.
This change of perspective came after Binance allegedly also put in practice a about-face in the market of Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Cyprus.
In all these cases, the motivation was always wanting to be adjusted to something bigger, and that is MiCA.
Not only that, still regarding Binance and stablecoin, it seems that at the end of August the crypto-exchange would have decided to discontinue its support for BUSD from next January 2024. The motivation in this case, however, does not concern compliance with MiCA.
Bitcoin and stablecoin: reactions after the crypto-exchange news
What Binance does as a crypto-exchange is mainly to offer trading solutions for all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and stablecoin.
The present news, however, seems not to have triggered any intense reaction in the crypto market.
Bitcoin (BTC) has been in a slight bear market for the past seven days, but only by 2%. Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) are also seeing slight declines in terms of market capitalization.
And in fact, USDT touched $83.26 billion market cap overnight, settling now at $83.19 billion. In fact, seven days ago USDT’s market cap was $83.05 billion.
USDC, on the other hand, has been declining over the past seven days with the market cap falling from $26.16 billion to the current $25.78 billion.