What exactly is the European MiCA license that various exchanges have been debating recently? The market was already poor, with gods fighting and people suffering. A MiCA license has sparked business and verbal disputes among exchanges. Let's talk about the past and present of this MiCA. Firstly, the birth of MiCA can also be attributed to Facebook. In 2019, Facebook's grand launch of Libra caused a global shock, especially sparking strong opposition from multiple EU countries. The European Central Bank was concerned that it would weaken the status of the euro and trigger large-scale financial stability and money laundering issues. However, some financially open countries also had a supportive attitude towards cryptocurrencies. At that time, the EU did not have a unified regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, and countries entered a state of tug of war, even requiring their own legislation. The originally unified EU began to "divide" on the issue of cryptocurrencies, leading to the EU having to officially put cryptocurrency regulation on the agenda. In the second year, the EU officially released the world's first MiCA proposal for cryptocurrency regulation. Therefore, The full name of MiCA is The Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation regulates the cryptocurrency asset market. Although Facebook, the "initiator," ultimately ended Libra, MiCA did not stop and entered a lengthy negotiation process in the following three years. Due to different countries' interests, France hoped for strict regulation, Germany emphasized the need for banks to participate, Malta advocated open innovation, and ultimately unified the rules through multiple EU negotiations. In 2023, the MiCA Act was officially passed, and its greatest significance is that as long as you obtain approval from any of the 27 EU countries, you can obtain the legal operation rights of the entire EU. After the MiCA Act officially came into effect in 2024, the European Union gave a two-year buffer period. Companies that are already operating do not need to immediately stop their business and can continue to operate while applying for MiCA licenses. This transition period ends on July 1st of this year. If they have not received approval from any country, they cannot continue to provide services to European users. This is why various exchanges have entered a verbal war on licenses since the end of June, because tomorrow is July 1st. At this point in the story, you seem to have vaguely realized that there is something not quite right. Out of 27 countries, as long as you get one, you will automatically travel throughout Europe. It is difficult for some old established powers, but the EU has many bullet sized countries, which should have a lot of room for operation. In fact, this is true. Currently, over 20 exchanges have obtained MiCA licenses, with the highest number of issuing countries being Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Ireland, and the Netherlands. For example, OKX and Gate are both based in Malta, Coinbase is based in Luxembourg, Kraken is based in Ireland, Bybit is based in Austria, and there are a bunch of strange exchanges whose names I haven't even heard of. At first glance, do you feel that obtaining a MiCA license is not that difficult? Anyway, all you need to do is deal with one country, and they are all small countries that seem easy to deal with. So the question is, why did the largest cryptocurrency in the universe, Binance, encounter Waterloo this time? Has Binance been rejected in all 27 countries? Although MiCA itself does not stipulate that a company can only submit one application, meaning that you can even apply for all 27 countries at once and use whichever is approved, in practice, there is no exchange that does this. Instead, it is all in one country. On the one hand, the application cost is very high, not just filling out a form, requiring a lot of legal audit and compliance resources, and also dealing with regulatory differences in different countries. Secondly, if multiple countries are applied for simultaneously, the EU will question its true regulatory jurisdiction and is likely to not issue licenses. So according to public reports, Binance had contacts with multiple countries at the time, but ultimately did not adopt a dual insurance strategy and chose Greece, which had never even issued a MiCA license before. So the question is again, this is very counterintuitive and unreasonable. Why didn't Binance choose countries that have already issued a large number of licenses, have mature experience, clustered exchanges, and seem to have low barriers to entry, but instead chose Greece, which has never issued a license before? So it confirms the saying that choice is really more important than effort in many cases. Just now, it was mentioned that the issuing country of MiCA license is actually equivalent to a regulatory territory, which means the long-term operation center or even the headquarters location. Therefore, according to reports, Binance chose Greece not because the license is easy to obtain (which has been proven difficult to obtain), but because they wanted to use Greece as their operating headquarters in a certain state. On the one hand, Greece has very low costs. After the entire country went bankrupt in 2009, wages and housing levels were much lower than those of core Western European countries. On the other hand, although small countries like Luxembourg and Malta have high consumption, the key is that they are too small to accommodate even a few employees. On the other hand, Greece can now directly buy a house and settle down, with a minimum of 250000 euros for a family of three to obtain a green card. Therefore, Binance is not just looking to obtain a license in Europe, but also wants to move people there. Greece, as a bankrupt country, is in a hurry to move around. At this time, the world's largest trading company is moving over to contribute employment and tax revenue, which sounds like a perfect two-way rush. Unfortunately, due to Greece's lack of experience in issuing MiCA and regulatory expertise in complex industries such as cryptocurrency, the actual approval difficulty has increased exponentially. To make matters worse, as mentioned earlier, the MiCA Act was passed in 2023, and in the same year, the regulatory punch of the United States also fell, with the Department of Justice imposing an epic $4.3 billion fine on Binance. Although Binance later reconciled with the US government and rebuilt the global compliance framework, after all, Greece, which had no experience in this matter, was sweating profusely with Binance's application in hand. Many countries, including Germany, had expressed their intention to kick Greece out of the EU due to bankruptcy debts. It is worth noting that according to public reports, it is not Greece that rejected Binance's application, but Binance withdrew Greece's application because it cannot meet the deadline of July 1st. Therefore, whether it is rejected or expired, the final result is that it cannot operate in the EU. Therefore, it is better to withdraw voluntarily, at least not to be labeled as rejected. So looking back now, Binance's bet on Greece was an important reason for not obtaining the MiCA license. If they had also chosen countries like Luxembourg at that time, the probability of passing would have been higher. Does the fact that Binance did not obtain the MiCA license from Greece this time mean that it has completely lost Europe? MiCA licenses are not lifelong, and according to the law, they can still be reapplied for in other countries. Therefore, Binance is likely to continue applying for licenses in several other countries in the future, but because this controversy will attract more attention, the difficulty has become even greater.