VARA in Dubai
The Virtual Assets and Related Activities Regulations 2023 were released on Tuesday by Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA).
The regulations lay forth a thorough framework for virtual assets (VAs) based on ideas of financial stability and economic sustainability across borders.
In accordance with the new regulations, VARA will support economic stability, investor protection, and jurisdictional resilience related to VA. Seven licensed VA operations are covered by the regulations: advising, broker-dealer, custodial, exchange, lending-borrowing, payments and remittances, and VA management and investment services. To help customers choose new tokens being launched in Dubai more wisely and to clarify the responsibilities of the issuer, issuance is also a regulated activity under the VARA regime.
The VA framework was built with regulatory certainty in mind, giving the market more clarity on what to expect in terms of operator accountability. Additionally, it requires licensed entities in the emirate to adhere to anti-money laundering (AML) regulations that are of the highest caliber and gold standard.
“Dubai’s D33 Economic Plan has highlighted our aim to create the emirate as the capital of the future economy centered by Metaverse, AI, Web3.0, and Blockchain,” said Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General of Dubai’s Department of Economy & Tourism and Chairman of VARA’s Executive Board. In order to accelerate the development of a fully global digital economy, VARA—the sole independent, specialized regulator for virtual assets—was established in Q1-2022. Ahead of its one anniversary since being founded, VARA introduces a groundbreaking VA framework designed to advance our new economy agenda and support secure, sustainable, and “global” market growth. This specially created structure is a reflection of Dubai’s confidence in creating a progressive VA ecosystem that fosters next-generation innovation as well as the UAE’s dedication to developing responsible safeguards.
