The numbers come first. Coinbase has been granted a license by Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) to arrange investment deals and provide custody for tokenized securities — establishing what the exchange calls an international 'tokenization hub' in the emirate. The move signals that Abu Dhabi is no longer a regional experiment; it is becoming a primary venue for global digital-asset issuance.
ADGM introduced one of the world's first comprehensive virtual-asset regulatory frameworks back in 2018. That early-mover discipline has paid off: over 20 firms now hold active virtual-asset licenses in the financial centre. In December 2025, Binance — the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume — also received an ADGM license. CoinMarketCap's June 2026 data puts Binance's trading volume at $4.74 trillion, equivalent to 39.5% of volume across the 11 exchanges it tracks.
Adam Popat, CEO of SettleMint — a platform that helps regulated institutions design, issue and manage digital assets — told Fortune the Coinbase decision carries a clear signal for the market. 'When a listed U.S. exchange chooses Abu Dhabi for that work, it tells issuers and allocators that the UAE now has the regulatory depth to host global issuance, not only regional experiments,' he said. Popat, who relocated from London to the UAE last year after previously leading Standard Chartered's digital-asset adoption, called the UAE 'one of the leading lights when it comes to tokenization, not just in this region, but globally.'
The institutional pipeline is deepening fast. SettleMint is currently in talks with all the large banks in the UAE on initiatives covering tokenized equities, funds, bonds and deposits. Tokenization of gold is, in Popat's words, 'a very active conversation' with several partners. In May, SettleMint signed a strategic partnership with ADI Foundation to build digital-asset lifecycle infrastructure on ADI Chain, the Foundation's institutional blockchain, under the ADGM regulatory framework. ADI Foundation — which aims to bring one billion people into the digital economy by 2030 — announced in July that ADI Chain had secured a $50 million strategic investment to support expansion across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Sovereign capital is also moving. Mubadala Capital, the asset-management arm of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, tokenized one of its private-market investment strategies through UAE-based infrastructure provider KAIO on blockchain infrastructure that includes Base, with Coinbase also participating. The ecosystem is further supported by the rollout of DDSC, a dirham-pegged stablecoin developed through a collaboration between First Abu Dhabi Bank, International Holding Company and Sirius International Holding.
CEO Times' read: What Abu Dhabi has built is a textbook case of regulatory clarity driving capital formation. While other jurisdictions spent years debating digital-asset rules, ADGM wrote them — and the market has answered. Coinbase, Binance and a growing roster of institutional players are not choosing Abu Dhabi for its weather; they are choosing it because clear property rights, predictable licensing and deep sovereign capital pools make the math work. For American firms navigating an uneven domestic regulatory landscape, the UAE's model offers a pointed lesson: when government gets the framework right and then steps back, free enterprise does the rest.
