1 week ago
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Key Takeaways
- VARA introduced three distinct issuance pathways, each carrying different capital and licensing requirements.
- Minimum capital for stablecoin issuers is set at AED 1.5 million or 2% of average reserve assets.
- The UAE recorded over $30 billion in crypto inflows between mid-2023 and mid-2024, with institutional transactions up 55% year-on-year.
- A federal ban on privacy tokens including Monero and Zcash took effect in February 2026.
The document does not introduce an entirely new legal framework but interprets the existing Virtual Asset Issuance Rulebook, giving market participants the operational clarity that has been largely absent across competing financial hubs.
The highest-regulation category covers fiat-referenced virtual assets and asset-referenced tokens, which in practice means stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. Issuers operating in this category must obtain a full Category 1 VA Issuance License and maintain minimum pai...
English (US)