Dubai World Trade Centre bids to become 'comprehensive' crypto zone and regulator

The Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) made a public bid to compete with other crypto hubs across the world in a statement on 20 December that said it "will become a comprehensive zone and regulator for virtual assets and crypto including digital assets, products, operators and exchanges".

The Dubai World Trade Centre said it will be designing a comprehensive ecosystem for this progressive sector within Dubai.

"The Dubai World Trade Centre will collaborate with the private sector and relevant entities in Dubai to create an attractive environment for the sector, and enforce rigorous standards for investor protection, Anti Money Laundering (AML), Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) compliance and cross border deal flow tracing."

The announcement comes as Dubai is creating a framework for innovative financial products, adopting new trends that rely on advanced underlying blockchain technology, such as non-fungible token (NFT) and cryptocurrencies.

The World Trade Center said it "will deliver and oversee a new world-class regulatory framework of Virtual Asset legislative and enforcement policies, 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".

Meanwhile, Bloomberg has reported that the UAE is in talks with Asian firms to relocate to the Gulf hub for cryptocurrencies.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, minister of state for entrepreneurship and SMEs said: "We've seen multinational firms right now waiting to relocate out of east Asia."

He added that the government was in talks with "several" firms eyeing a base in the UAE given tougher regulations elsewhere and given the country's resilience through the pandemic.

Bloomberg reported last week that Binance Holdings Ltd. had held discussions with regulators in the UAE about a potential headquarters in the Gulf.