DUBAI: The emirate of Dubai has adopted its first law governing virtual assets and established a regulator to oversee the sector.
The United Arab Emirates has been pushing to develop virtual asset regulation to attract new forms of business as regional economic competition heats up. Virtual assets generally encompass products including crypto currencies and NFTs, but the announcement did not specify which assets would come under the new law.
The Dubai Virtual Asset Regulation Law aims to position Dubai and the UAE as a regional and global destination for the virtual assets sector, its ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid said in a statement.
“We established an independent authority to oversee the development of the best business environment in the world for the virtual assets in terms of regulation, licensing, governance, and in line with local and global financial systems,” Sheikh Mohammed said on Twitter.
“The future belongs to whoever designs it … and today, through the virtual assets law, we seek to participate in the design of this new and rapidly growing global sector,” he said.
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The Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority will oversee the development of the business environment for virtual assets in terms of regulation, licensing and governance.
The new law will apply throughout Dubai except for the state-owned financial free zone DIFC. DIFC’s regulator, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), is working on its own regulation for the virtual asset sector.
In October, DFSA released the first part which governs digital tokens, and this week launched a consultation on regulation for crypto tokens, which includes crypto currencies. The UAE as a whole is getting closer to issuing virtual asset investment regulation, the UAE’s Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) said.
