Overview
- Coinbase announced this week that it has set up an international tokenization hub at Abu Dhabi Global Market after receiving a Financial Services Permission to arrange investment deals and provide custody for tokenized securities.
- Under the ADGM licence, tokenized securities will be issued under the centre’s rules and can be held in digital wallets, which can remove the need for traditional brokerage accounts and correspondent banking relationships.
- Abu Dhabi’s move builds on a regulatory lead that began in 2018 when ADGM created an early virtual-asset framework and has since licensed more than 20 virtual-asset firms, including a 2025 licence for Binance.
- The hub is part of Coinbase’s broader UAE push that includes Project Diamond in Abu Dhabi and a planned derivatives operation in Dubai, and industry leaders say the move helps shift tokenized securities from pilots to market-ready products.
- The development joins recent local initiatives—Mubadala’s tokenized private-market fund, SettleMint’s partnership with ADI Foundation, and ADI Chain’s $50 million investment—and supports estimates that GCC tokenization could reach roughly $500 billion by 2030.