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Binance opens new EU accounts without MiCA license, report finds. A recent report indicates that even after Binance announced it would wind down its services in several EU nations after failing to obtain a MiCA license, the exchange still allows European users in countries such as Austria, France, Germany, Spain and Belgium to register on its platform. Key takeaways. * Sandmark found Binance allowed new EU accounts after the July 1 MiCA deadline without any license warnings. * ESMA requires unauthorized firms to halt EU onboarding, yet Binance says it seeks MiCA compliance. * EU regulators are penalizing MiCA violations, signaling strict legal risks for non-compliant exchanges. Binance reportedly still onboarding users in the European Union after MiCA implementation. Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volumes, might not be complying with the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework after it entered into effect on July 1. Sandmark, a crypto analysis platform, reported that its staff opened and verified several accounts from the European Union (EU) on August 19. The report stresses that these actions were taken from different EU nations, including Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and Belgium, with and without virtual private networks (VPNs). The report stresses that two accounts were opened with fully verified KYC in two countries, and none of the tests resulted in any warning about Binance lacking MiCA licenses. In accounts that passed verification checks, crypto services remained available, including receiving deposits. After Binance withdrew its application to obtain a MiCA license from Greek regulators, it sent notices reassuring customers about the safety of their assets, reporting that transfers and withdrawals were available where applicable, depending on user location and account status. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) offered guidance mandating unauthorized firms to "take immediate steps to wind down their EU activities in an orderly manner, while also safeguarding clients' interests and mitigating risks to market integrity." This includes stopping the onboarding of European clients, opening new accounts, marketing their services to EU users, and soliciting customers in the region by July 1. Binance representatives reportedly told Sandmark that they haven't given up on Europe and that they are still pursuing MiCA licensing in the region to operate "on a long-term, compliant basis." "Following the implementation of MiCA, we have taken steps to ensure that the availability of our products and services in Europe aligns with relevant legal and regulatory frameworks," the exchange told Sandmark. European regulators are already issuing MiCA penalties to exchanges. On August 14, the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) hit Bitpanda with a 70K euros fine for notification and marketing violations. Yesterday Greed Last Week Fear Last Month Fear How do you feel about the market today?

Kraken US stocks land in Europe with a tokenized twin. August 18, 2026 * Kraken opened trading in more than 7,000 US-listed stocks across the European Economic Area. * The equities business runs through a Cyprus-licensed entity under MiFID II rules. * Users can hold the same company as a custodied share and as a wallet-transferable token. * Bitpanda, Robinhood and Crypto.com already compete for the same European retail account. Kraken switched on traditional US equity trading for customers across the European Economic Area on August 18, 2026, opening access to more than 7,000 US-listed stocks next to the 600-plus crypto assets and 700-plus tokenized xStocks already on the platform. The service runs through Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited, Kraken's Cyprus-based investment firm licensed by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, under a MiFID II authorization that passports the offering into every EEA member state. Trading is live on Kraken Pro across web and mobile and on the standard retail app, with equity commissions waived for eligible users, though currency conversion costs and market spreads still apply. Germany, France and the Netherlands got contained pilots first. Spain, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Portugal and Norway are among the markets added in this final phase. One company, two versions, same account. Plenty of platforms sell Europeans exposure to Apple or Nvidia. What separates this launch is that a Kraken customer can now hold the actual share and its tokenized counterpart without moving capital between products or providers. That reads like a plumbing detail. It is closer to a bet on which format eventually wins. xStocks arrived in mid-2025 through a partnership with the tokenization protocol Backed Finance, collateralized one-to-one against the underlying equities. The two formats diverge well before a trade ever settles. TRADITIONAL SHARE HOURS Fixed US exchange sessions CUSTODY Held by a traditional custodian MOBILITY Confined to the Kraken platform RIGHTS Voting and full legal entitlements TOKENIZED xSTOCK HOURS 24/5 on crypto rails CUSTODY Withdrawable to a self-custody wallet MOBILITY Composable inside DeFi protocols RIGHTS Generally no voting rights Mark Greenberg, Chief Commercial Officer at Payward, described the launch as removing what he called the artificial divide between traditional and tokenized formats of the same asset. The commercial logic behind the phrasing is plain enough. A customer who can move between a custodied share and a wallet-held token without leaving the app has one less reason to open an account somewhere else. The licence did the heavy lifting. A crypto exchange cannot simply bolt equities onto its order book. Listing traditional shares drags the operator into the same regulatory perimeter as any European broker, which is why the business sits inside Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) rather than the entity handling crypto. MiFID II authorization carries obligations that crypto trading in Europe never imposed: appropriateness assessments, best execution duties, client asset segregation, detailed reporting to the national supervisor. Users meet that at signup. European clients face multi-step onboarding covering identity documentation, a financial knowledge questionnaire and tax eligibility verification before equity trading unlocks. The questionnaire is not a formality - under MiFID II a firm has to establish that a retail client understands the instrument in front of them, and a failed assessment can restrict access. Cyprus is a deliberate choice. CySEC-licensed investment firms passport their authorization across the entire EEA, so one supervisory relationship replaces thirty. Kraken is neither the first nor the last crypto operator to route European brokerage through Limassol. Where xStocks actually sits in the tokenized market. Kraken puts cumulative transaction volume through xStocks above $38 billion since the June 2025 launch. On market capitalization, Token Terminal data as of August 17 placed xStocks second among tokenized stock issuers, behind Ondo Finance and ahead of Binance's bStocks, though trackers label these differently - the tokens are issued by Backed Finance, with Kraken acting as distribution partner, and some datasets report the position under the issuer name instead. TOKENIZED STOCK ISSUERS BY MARKET CAP Ondo Finance $974M Kraken xStocks $609M Binance bStocks $544M Europe gets what the SEC will not clear. American retail investors cannot buy tokenized equities through a domestic exchange. The SEC's position on securities issuance, transfer agent requirements and settlement finality leaves no clean route for a US platform to hand a retail client a wallet-transferable share certificate. Europe wrote different rules. MiCA covers crypto-asset services, MiFID II covers securities, and the boundary between them is defined well enough that a firm can build across both without waiting for a no-action letter. That gap explains why so much cross-asset infrastructure gets tested on European users first. Crypto.com opened tokenized stock trading to EEA customers on August 12, 2026 with roughly 1,500 assets, six days ahead of Kraken. Binance runs bStocks. Coinbase offers integrated equities at home but leans on equity-linked perpetual futures and on-chain tooling for its international base. | PLATFORM | EEA OFFERING | FORMAT | | Kraken | 7,000+ US stocks, 700+ xStocks | Both | | Bitpanda | 10,000+ fractional stocks and ETFs | Traditional | | Robinhood | 2,000+ equities for EU citizens | Tokenized | | Crypto.com | ~1,500 assets, live August 12, 2026 | Tokenized | Bitpanda beats Kraken on raw instrument count. Robinhood reached the tokenized market earlier. Kraken's claim is narrower and harder to copy at speed: no other platform in the region fuses a regulated brokerage account with certificates a customer can withdraw to a wallet. Stocks are the retention play, not the revenue. For a European retail investor the immediate effect is one fewer account to maintain. Funding, portfolio reporting and tax documentation consolidate. The trade-off is concentration, and anyone who lived through 2022 understands what a single-venue balance means when the venue fails. Kraken earns almost nothing on commission-free equities, with conversion spreads doing the modest work. The value sits in what a stock portfolio does to churn. Crypto balances leave quickly. Equity positions held for years do not, and that changes how a business gets valued. The pattern repeats across jurisdictions - in July the exchange launched CFTC-regulated perpetual futures for eligible US clients through Bitnomial, the Chicago derivatives venue its parent acquired earlier in the year, giving American traders spot, margin, CME futures and perpetuals inside one collateral pool. Payward reported $508 million in Q2 revenue, up 17% year-over-year, against a backdrop of widely reported listing preparations. A brokerage arm holding sticky retail assets reads very differently to prospective public investors than a revenue line that tracks Bitcoin volatility. Settlement remains the open question. Tokenized equities depend on issuers such as Backed Finance holding the underlying shares and honoring redemptions, which quietly reintroduces the counterparty exposure that on-chain finance claims to remove. Supervisors across the EEA have begun examining that structure, and any guidance on collateral verification or redemption obligations would land directly on the product Kraken has built its differentiation around. Disclaimer: ETHNews does not endorse and is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy, quality, advertising, products, or other materials on this page. Readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to cryptocurrencies. ETHNews is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods, or services mentioned.

Austria fines Bitpanda 70,000 euros in first public penalty under EU's MiCA crypto Regulation. Aug 18, 2026 Reading time: 3 min Austrian regulators have imposed the first publicly disclosed enforcement penalty under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), fining crypto exchange Bitpanda 70,000 euros (approximately $82,000). The fine, reported by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA), stems from several procedural and disclosure violations related to the new EU crypto rulebook. According to the FMA, Bitpanda failed to submit a required crypto-asset white paper to the regulator at least 20 working days before its publication. The exchange also circulated marketing material before the white paper was published and omitted a mandatory disclaimer, along with contact information such as a phone number and email address, in a separate marketing message. The case was resolved through an accelerated procedure under Austrian financial-market law, and the penalty ruling is legally final. These violations are described as procedural and disclosure-related, rather than allegations of fraud or investor losses. The relatively modest fine suggests the FMA treated the lapses as compliance failures rather than serious misconduct, according to source claims. MiCA Framework and Compliance The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) is designed to create a unified set of rules across all 27 EU member states, aiming to protect investors and safeguard the integrity of crypto markets. The framework took full effect for crypto-asset service providers in late 2024, introducing a transition period for existing firms to secure authorization. This grace window has been winding down across the bloc, increasing pressure on companies to achieve full compliance. Regulatory Outlook This enforcement action by Austrian regulators is seen as an early marker of how European authorities intend to police the new regime. The penalty lands as the industry navigates MiCA's rollout. Brussels is also expected to revisit MiCA in 2027, with proposed revisions that could potentially tighten oversight, particularly for foreign stablecoin issuers. While the specific details of the proposed revisions in 2027 remain uncertain, this initial enforcement action highlights the active regulatory environment emerging under MiCA. The extent to which other EU member states will follow Austria's lead in enforcing MiCA penalties is also a point of observation as the regulatory landscape continues to evolve. Why this matters. The materials describe a narrow update: Bitpanda was fined 70,000 euros by the FMA for failing to submit a required crypto-asset white paper to the regulator at least 20 working days before publishing it, circulating marketing material before publishing the white paper, and omitting a mandatory disclaimer and contact information in a separate marketing message. The exact nature and scope of proposed revisions to MiCA in 2027. Broader context. Source materials place the factual news in this context: Austria's Financial Market Authority, known as the FMA. Editor's pick XRP whale transaction volume surges amidst price decline, implications remain unclear. The XRP Ledger has recently seen a significant increase in large transaction activity, with transactions exceeding $1 million surging by 280...