Belgium ordered Binance to stop crypto exchange and custody services

Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority ordered Binance on June 23, 2023 to stop immediately offering exchange between virtual currencies and legal currencies and custody-wallet services in Belgium. The regulator said those services were being supplied from countries outside the European Economic Area, contrary to Belgium’s anti-money-laundering framework.

The action mattered beyond one national market. It turned the legal identity of the entities behind a global exchange into the central compliance question: not simply what the Binance brand offered, but which company actually exchanged customer money and which company legally held customers’ assets or cryptographic keys.

What the Belgian regulator found

The FSMA said Belgian law prohibited a person or firm governed by the law of a non-EEA country from professionally providing the covered exchange or custody services in Belgium. It cited Article 136 of Belgium’s anti-money-laundering law for the possibility of criminal sanctions when that prohibition is breached.

According to the FSMA’s June 23 statement, Binance’s terms for Belgian clients referred to “Binance Operators” without otherwise identifying them. The regulator said 27 companies appeared to be involved in operational or technical aspects of the service and that 19 appeared to be based outside the EEA. Those figures were the regulator’s characterization of the contractual and corporate record, not an independently audited map of the Binance group.

The FSMA also said it had made several information requests and that Binance had not demonstrated to the required legal standard that the entities actually performing fiat-to-crypto exchange and holding Belgian clients’ assets or keys were EEA-based and authorized under their home-country law to serve Belgium. The authority said Binance did not dispute that it offered the services in Belgium.

The order reached customer assets

The decision went beyond blocking new business. The FSMA required Binance to contact affected Belgian clients, take account of their instructions, and either return the virtual currencies and cryptographic keys held for them or transfer them to an appropriately authorized EEA entity. The regulator told Binance to use precautions necessary to secure any transfer.

That remedy made custody architecture a practical regulatory issue. A platform could present one interface to users while relying on multiple legal entities behind it; the FSMA’s position was that the responsible exchange and depositary entities still had to be identifiable and legally eligible to operate in Belgium.

The scope was narrower than a general prohibition on cryptocurrency. The order addressed Binance’s fiat-crypto exchange and custody-wallet services in Belgium. It did not announce a ban on owning crypto assets, outlaw peer-to-peer transfers, or establish that every service carrying the Binance name was prohibited throughout the EEA.

A fragmented European rulebook

On June 23, 2023, European crypto regulation was still transitional. The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation had been published in the Official Journal on June 9, 2023, but its broad crypto-asset service-provider regime was not yet applicable. MiCA’s main application date was set for December 30, 2024, with its stablecoin titles scheduled from June 30, 2024. Belgium was therefore acting under its national implementation of anti-money-laundering rules rather than a live, fully harmonized MiCA authorization system.

The Belgian order also arrived amid separate U.S. pressure. On June 5, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed 13 charges against Binance entities and founder Changpeng Zhao. Those were allegations in civil litigation, not adjudicated findings on June 23, and they arose under a different legal framework. Their relevance was institutional: regulators in multiple jurisdictions were testing whether Binance’s corporate structure, registrations and controls matched the services users received.

What the June 23 record establishes

The authoritative record establishes an immediate Belgian cease-services order, the categories of service covered, the FSMA’s stated legal basis, and the required handling of client assets. It does not quantify affected customers or assets, provide a compliance deadline beyond “immediate,” or demonstrate a same-day market-price effect. Without a specified exchange, instrument and measurement window, no price reaction should be attributed to the order.