Crypto Exchange Bybit on Monday said it will open its global headquarters in Dubai and cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com said it will set up a regional hub there, the latest moves in the UAE’s quest to become a hub for the virtual asset sector. Dubai, one of the seven emirates and the region’s commercial hub, this month issued its first law governing virtual assets and set up the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) to oversee the sector.
“Bybit has received initial approval to conduct a full range of virtual asset business in Dubai,” the company said in a statement, adding that the headquarters is expected to begin operations in April.
Dubai this month granted virtual asset licenses to Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and FTX Europe, a subsidiary of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges FTX. FTX will establish a regional headquarters in the city. Crypto.com, a major crypto exchange based in Singapore, said in a statement that it wants to establish a significant presence in the UAE and will launch a major recruitment campaign in the coming months.
The UAE is seeking to develop the virtual asset sector and regulate it to attract new forms of business as regional economic competition intensifies. Helal Al Marri, Director General of Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism, said at an investment conference in Dubai on Monday that the UAE aspires to become a global capital for virtual assets and other sectors such as Metaverse.
“We are seeing the talent movement coming here, we are seeing major corporations, banks and other multinational companies that are starting to tip their toes into space, choosing the UAE as their home to do so,” he said.
Internationally, regulators are concerned about how the collapse of crypto assets – highly volatile and still opaque markets – will fuel the broader financial sector. The Financial Stability Board, a risk watchdog for G20 economies, said in February that data gaps around crypto assets make it difficult to assess their full use and many investors do not fully understand what they are buying.
(The title and image for this report may have been reformulated only by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a shared feed.)
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