The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been granted a licence to conduct some operations in Dubai, the company said on Wednesday, from where it plans to carry out regional business. Reuters reports.
The awarding of the Virtual Asset Licence from Dubai’s recently formed Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) comes after Gulf neighbour Bahrain on Tuesday awarded Binance a crypto-asset service provider licence, its first such licence from a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country.
With financial regulators across the world have targeted Binance, with some banning the platform from certain activities and others warning consumers that it was not licensed to operate in their jurisdictions, granting the license to Binance makes Dubai a key player on the cryptocurrency market.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Gulf region’s financial capital, has been pushing to develop the virtual asset sector and regulation to attract new forms of business as regional economic competition heats up.
Dubai, one of the UAE’s seven emirates, adopted its first law governing virtual assets and established VARA as a regulator to oversee the sector on 28th of February 2022.
Binance said in December it was working with DWTC to help set up an international virtual asset ecosystem in Dubai and assist with the development of virtual asset regulations.
What it means: Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange, Dubai granting it a license means that cryptocurrency is yet another set closer to be treated as a real currency and more governments may now reevaluate their positions towards cryptocurrency to avoid monopolization.