How the UAE has emerged as a ‘leading light’ for tokenization

Abu Dhabi’s bid to become a global hub for digital assets got a major boost last week when crypto exchange giant, Coinbase, announced it is establishing an international “tokenization hub” in the emirate .

Based out of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the emirate’s financial centre, Coinbase has been granted a license to arrange investment deals and provide custody for tokenized securities.

Custody essentially means safely holding and managing the digital ownership records for assets and is therefore important for giving institutional investors confidence.

Tokenization has been rapidly gaining momentum across traditional finance globally, with major asset managers and banks increasingly bringing funds, bonds, private credit and equities onto blockchain infrastructure.

Abu Dhabi has emerged as a key testing ground for this transition.

ADGM introduced one of the world’s first comprehensive virtual asset regulatory frameworks back in 2018 and has since attracted a steady wave of crypto and tokenization firms looking to establish a regulated base in the region.

In December last year, the ADGM granted Binance , the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, a license to operate from the financial centre.

CoinMarketCap’s June 2026 data shows Binance’s trading volume stood at $4.74 trillion —equivalent to 39.5% of trading volume across the 11 exchanges it tracks, well ahead of its competitors.

Over 20 firms now hold active virtual asset licences in the ADGM today.

For Coinbase, the company is betting that more of the world’s financial system will eventually move onto blockchain—and it wants Abu Dhabi to be at the centre of that change.

“Coinbase locating its international tokenisation hub in ADGM is the kind of licence that turns tokenized securities from a pilot into a market,” UAE-based Adam Popat, CEO of SettleMint, which helps regulated institutions design, issue, and manage digital assets across the full lifecycle on one platform, told Fortune .

“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.” Popat relocated from London to the UAE last year to take up the CEO role, having previously served as SettleMint’s CFO.

Prior to that, he led Standard Chartered’s adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology.

“I would say the UAE is one of the leading lights when it comes to tokenization, not just in this region, but globally,” he said.