Comparison between Binance and Coinbase: Why there is no definite answer to the "scope of registere

The gap between the license statement of unknown origin and reality

There is no information in this evidence set that Binance and Coinbase hold equal and verified registration qualifications in the same country. The clearest factual document is that Binan pleaded guilty to U.S. charges in November 2023 and paid a $4.3 billion fine, while Coinbase is a listed company listed on NASDAQ. In addition, the license statements circulated in the exchange comparison tables-Coinbase holds a MiCA license in Luxembourg, Binance holds a MiCA license in France, and Binance is completely banned in four specific countries-all of these evidence originated from a single supporting page article rather than an official document or registry of a regulator.

Actual documented facts

According to DL News reported on November 27, 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to U.S. criminal charges for failing to establish anti-money laundering protection measures. Under the settlement, Binance agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine and accept what DL News called a three-year strict surveillance plan, with founder and CEO Zhao Changpeng resigned. Another media outlet in this evidence, eco.com, described the same November 2023 settlement agreement, but stated that Binance is currently in a five-year compliance monitoring period-the two parties have different descriptions of the monitoring period and neither is the original document such as the settlement agreement itself.

DL News also reported on November 27, 2023 that Binance does not have a board of directors or registered headquarters in any country. At its peak, the exchange held 60% of global cryptocurrency trading volume, and DL News said that as of the release of its report, this share had dropped to about 43%. In contrast, Coinbase has taken what DL News calls a compliance path since its founding in 2012-registering state licenses, restricting the types of tokens listed, and listing in 2021. Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong wrote on Platform X (quoted by DL News) that going public means Coinbase "can't always move as quickly as everyone else." Armstrong also said (according to DL News) that "adopting a compliance approach is more difficult and expensive. When certain products are illegal, you can't launch all the products your customers want." DL News did not specify the location or background of the latter comment. Aaron Atman, managing director of XReg Consulting, told DL News that Binance's settlement created what he called a "good situation" for compliant competitors, although he said it had been a competitive disadvantage for a long time.

Datawallet stated in an article last updated on March 27, 2026 that claimed to have been fully edited and reviewed that Coinbase was founded by Brian Armstrong and Fred Elsam in 2012 and was listed on Nasdaq in April 2021 under the stock code COIN; Binance was founded by Zhao Changpeng and He Yi in 2017.

Real-life case test: Binance seeks EU-wide license

According to IBTimes quoted Reuters on June 16, 2026, the EU's Cryptographic Asset Markets Regulation (MiCA) requires crypto companies to obtain authorization from a member state's regulatory authority before "passing" services to all 27 EU countries. According to the Bitcoin Foundation reported on July 3, 2026, MiCA's transition period ends on July 1, 2026, after which unlicensed platforms must stop providing services to EU customers.

IBTimes reported on June 16, 2026 that according to two anonymous people familiar with the matter, Binance's request for a license from the Greek Capital Markets Committee is expected to be rejected. Binance has established a local entity, Binary Greece, and earlier this year selected the country as its EU regulatory base. Representatives of Greek regulators declined to comment, citing confidentiality rules, while Binance said (according to reports cited by IBTimes) it had not received formal notice of refusal and maintained communication with regulators during the license application process. IBTimes also cited public data from CoinMarketCap as saying that at the time of Binance's application, Greece had not issued MiCA licenses to any crypto companies, while Germany and the Netherlands had issued significantly more authorizations.

The Bitcoin Foundation reported on July 3, 2026 that when Binance's Greek license application became apparent that it could not be approved in time, the application was withdrawn, and Binance subsequently suspended new registrations, spot transactions, some deposits and financial management and pledge products for EU users, but can still be withdrawn. According to the Bitcoin Foundation, Binance's most complete regulatory center is currently located in United Arab Emirates, and the exchange's global user base (more than 300 million, according to the Bitcoin Foundation quoted Binance's data disclosed since August 2023) means that losing the EU market is not expected to cause a major financial blow. The Bitcoin Foundation also stated that Binance did not publicly disclose the breakdown of its EU user base by country or the proportion of transaction volume from Europe, so it was unable to quantify the actual scale of losses from available evidence.

Compare differences between websites and news reports

The key point of disagreement is that news reports (DL News, IBTimes, Bitcoin Foundation) describe a controversial and unresolved license approval process in a specific country, Greece, as the deadline approaches. Eco.com clearly stated in a support page comparison article that Coinbase "obtained MiCA license in Luxembourg in 2025" and Binance "obtained MiCA license through its French subsidiary in 2025." Eco.com's own comparison table also states that Binance is "prohibited or unlicensed" in the UK, the Netherlands, Canada (Ontario) and Nigeria.

The eco.com article does not have a verifiable release date in the evidence collected for this article. This page only displays "Updated more than 2 weeks ago", does not give any absolute date, and cannot independently determine the release date. Therefore, it is impossible to judge whether its license statement is recent or outdated compared to the Reuters report on Binance Greece's application in mid-2026, or whether the two descriptions are for the same period.

Eco.com's specific statement-Luxembourg license, French subsidiary license or four-country ban list-does not appear in any other source in this evidence. There are no regulatory statements, documents or registration entries to support these claims. The claim that Binance holds a French MiCA license is inconsistent with contemporaneous reports by IBTimes and the Bitcoin Foundation-the latter said Binance's EU-wide adoption strategy in mid-2026 was based on a Greek application that was expected to fail and was subsequently withdrawn-if a French license already existed and covered EU-wide adoption, the Greek application would be superfluous, and none of the sources gathered in this evidence explain this apparent contradiction.

Another comparison site BitDegree (Last updated June 2, 2026) states in its form that Coinbase is "fully authorized in the EU under MiCA" but does not specify member states, license date or source; It said Binance.US (an entity legally separate from the CoinSafe Globe Exchange according to BitDegree and eco.com) is registered with FinCEN and holds currency transfer licenses in most U.S. states, but according to BitDegree, it is not available in places such as New York, Texas and Washington.

Smaller cases of the same problem: Number of users

Unreliability is not limited to license claims. Datawallet's article body set Coinbase's user base at approximately 140 million verified users as of 2026, but its parallel comparison table in the same article listed Coinbase's user base as 120,000,000. The body of the same article stated that Binance had exceeded 310 million registered users at the beginning of 2026, while its table showed 300,000,000. BitDegree gave another set of numbers in its last updated table on June 2, 2026: 670,000 Binance.US active users, and more than 100 million Coinbase active users-these numbers are different from what Datawallet measures because one is for Binance.US and the other is for Binance.US's global platform. None of these figures indicate disclosures from the exchange itself; all are based on second-hand estimates from comparison websites.

This page cannot tell you what to do

This page cannot confidently state which countries currently approve the operation of any of these exchanges. This requires verification that the main sources-national regulators 'own license registers and exchanges' own regulatory documents-are not included in the evidence collected here. All of the above license statements are derived from news articles or comparison websites 'own forms, rather than the regulator's register itself.

The available evidence does not determine whether Binance holds a French MiCA license as stated by eco.com, or whether the statement is completely wrong or outdated (considering contemporaneous reports from Reuters and IBTimes on the Greek application). It is impossible to say whether Binance has resumed services in some EU countries (if any) after the suspension in July 2026, because the Bitcoin Foundation reported that it did not disclose details at the national level. It is not possible to provide verified figures on Binance's transaction volume or user base from the EU, as both the Bitcoin Foundation and Datawallet pointed out that this breakdown was not published. This page should not be read as confirming eco.com's claim that Binance is banned in the UK, the Netherlands, Canada or Nigeria-the statement appears in only one source, has no confirmed release date, and is not supported here.

Finally, the number of users and assets quoted by BitDegree, Datawallet, and eco.com are either reported by these websites themselves or estimates. Except for the rough mention of "2026" or eco.com where there is no absolute date at all, these numbers are not dated, and there are at least two contradictions in the same article. It is quoted here only as an attribution statement, not as a verification of facts.