Coinbase Wins Dutch Approval That Should Give Crypto Exchange Access to All of EU

Coinbase (COIN), the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, won a regulatory approval from the Dutch central bank that will eventually give it the ability to offer services in the entire European Union.

Registering with the De Nederlandsche Bank will give Coinbase permission to offer crypto products and services to consumers and businesses in the country. Bitstamp, another crypto trading platform, was registered in the Netherlands in April 2021.

Once the EU's markets in crypto assets (MiCA) regulation comes into force, Coinbase will be able offer crypto trading services in the other 26 EU nations. The EU completed the full text of that legislation this week. Registration or licensing applications are underway in several other major markets, Coinbase said.

"The Netherlands is a critical international market for crypto, and I am really excited for Coinbase to bring the potential of the crypto economy to the market here,” Nana Murugesan, Coinbase's vice president of international and business development, said in a statement.

Coinbase follows rival crypto exchanges such as Binance, which registered in France, and Bitstamp, in Italy, in gaining regulatory approval in individual European countries this year, in theory making it easier to operate across the EU once MiCA becoming law.

Read more: Coinbase Completed $100M Transaction to Test Proprietary Trading: Report

UPDATE (Sept. 22, 16:25 UTC): Adds that Coinbase says it is first major crypto exchange in subheadline; an earlier version missed the attribution and the word "major." Adds Bitstamp achieved registration in 2021 in second paragraph.