Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao said the exchange's MiCA license application in Greece was fully compliant and on the verge of approval before unspecified political forces intervened, leading to last week's withdrawal, he said during the inaugural episode of The Block's new daily show, The Starting Block, hosted by head of multimedia Gareth Jenkinson.
"There were two countries in the EU that wanted the Binance application," CZ said. "Because of that, there was actually a bit of a back and forth and a fight over it. A bidding war of some kind. But unfortunately, there were other forces that were against it."
Binance’s MiCA withdrawal
There has been speculation that ECB President Christine Lagarde played a role in blocking the application, a claim Jenkinson also attributed to an anonymous source.
CZ did not confirm or deny the allegation directly, saying he had seen "the same information online" but had no direct documents to point to, and that he had not heard of any verified documents from Binance either.
