Dubai World Trade Centre to become regulator for virtual assets and crypto

The Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) is set to become a “comprehensive zone and regulator” for virtual assets and crypto including digital assets, products, operators and exchanges in the emirate.

DWTC will be designing a comprehensive ecosystem for this sector within Dubai, it was announced on Tuesday.

It will collaborate with private sector entities in Dubai to enforce standards for investor protection, anti money laundering (AML), combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) compliance and cross-border deal flow tracing, Dubai Media Office said in a statement.

The announcement comes as part of efforts to further develop the virtual assets markets in Dubai and includes creating a framework for new financial products and adopting trends that rely on blockchain technology, such as non-fungible token (NFT) and cryptocurrencies.

DWTC will “deliver and oversee a new world-class regulatory framework of virtual asset legislative and enforcement policies, which will be critical to facilitating and broadening cross-border operations and ecosystem innovation to enable safe market adoption and growth for this sector in Dubai”, the statement said.

Dubai has been seeing increased activity within the crypto and blockchain space.

In March this year, it was announced that businesses dealing with crypto assets can obtain bespoke licences offered by the DMCC Crypto Centre in Dubai.

DMCC signed an MoU with the the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) to establish a regulatory framework for businesses offering, issuing, listing, and trading crypto assets in the freezone.

The SCA will issue approvals for crypto-related businesses seeking to establish themselves in DMCC and regulate the crypto activities in line with their policies that were introduced in October 2020 to develop an integrated ecosystem for the crypto and blockchain industries.

Read: Cryptocurrency businesses can now open offices within DMCC freezone in Dubai

In May, the Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority (DAFZA) also signed an agreement with the SCA to support the regulation, offering, issuance, listing and trading of crypto assets within the freezone.

The agreement allows companies trading with crypto assets to be licensed within DAFZA, with SCA issuing the relevant approvals and licenses.

Read more: Regulated trading of cryptocurrency assets to begin in Dubai airport freezone