Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs has blocked access to Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market platform, and plans to block all social media accounts affiliated with it.

 

According to Alexander Sabar, Director General of Digital Space Supervision, platforms that facilitate money-based betting on specific outcomes or events are still categorized as online gambling, even if they are presented as prediction markets.

 

“The government will not allow any form of online gambling in Indonesia. Activities like Polymarket involve betting and speculation on uncertain outcomes, thus violating Indonesian law,” Sabar said in Central Jakarta, one of the country’s main administrative areas.

 

The agency also said the decision to block Polymarket is intended to protect younger users and the broader public in the digital space, and added that it will block access to other platforms that facilitate online gambling activities in the country.

 

Prior to the ban, Polymarket had a limited user base in Indonesia. However, it gained greater visibility between May 20 and 21 of this month when it launched a contract on whether President Prabowo Subianto would leave office early. The contract drew significant attention in Indonesian digital spaces, attracting roughly 51,000 dollars in trading volume within days of its launch.

 

Global Crackdown on Prediction Markets Continues

Regulators' crackdown on the activities of prediction market companies continues to intensify. Just last month, Brazil’s National Monetary Council (CMN), together with other government agencies and regulators, blocked Polymarket, Kalshi, and 27 other prediction market platforms from operating in the country. This came shortly after a court in Buenos Aires reportedly ordered a ban on Polymarket in Argentina.

 

Other countries in Europe, including France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Hungary, have either banned or heavily restricted the activities of Polymarket, Kalshi, and other prediction market companies within their jurisdictions.

 

In the United States, several state regulators have taken action against prediction markets, with Minnesota most recently imposing a comprehensive ban on them. At least 17 states, including Illinois, New York, and Ohio, have issued cease-and-desist orders against prediction market companies.

 

 

Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, has partnered with the Georgian government to launch GELT, a stablecoin representing the lari, the country’s official currency.

 

 

The partnership, announced on Monday, aims to create a financial ecosystem that supports cross-border commerce, fintech development, and broader access to programmable financial infrastructure across Georgia.

 

GELT will serve as a digital representation of the Georgian lari and will be designed to enable lower transaction costs, near instant settlement, programmable payments, and more efficient movement of value across digital financial systems.

 

“Together with visionary partners like Tether, Georgia is laying the foundations for a more connected, transparent, and digitally empowered financial world,” said Irakli Kobakhidze, Prime Minister of Georgia.

 

The launch of the GELT stablecoin is built on a regulatory framework created by the Georgian government and the National Bank of Georgia. In March this year, the National Bank of Georgia developed a framework governing the issuance of stablecoins.

 

The framework, officially known as “The Rule for the Initial Coin Offering of a Stable Virtual Asset by a Virtual Asset Service Provider,” sets out standards that must be met by all virtual asset service providers (VASPs) operating in the country, including requirements for 100 percent reserve backing, strong consumer protections, proper risk management, and full compliance with the country’s Anti Money Laundering (AML) standards.

 

“Stablecoins are no longer a niche financial instrument. They are becoming part of the infrastructure layer for global finance,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “Georgia has moved early to create serious regulatory architecture for digital assets and stablecoins, and that clarity creates the foundation for real innovation and adoption.”

 

Georgia’s stablecoin framework is also designed to be compatible with other regulatory frameworks, including the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) and Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA).

 

By partnering with Tether to launch the GELT stablecoin, Georgia becomes the first country to team up with a major stablecoin issuer to issue a government-supported stablecoin pegged to its national currency. The UAE has also launched a dirham-pegged stablecoin, but unlike Georgia’s GELT, that stablecoin was issued by local consortia rather than a major stablecoin issuer such as Tether.

 

The planned launch of the GELT stablecoin comes shortly after Tether launched its self-custodial wallet. In an effort to increase access to stablecoins, Qivalis recently expanded its consortium to include more banks, which are collectively working to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin.

 

The SEC just greenlighted cash-settled Bitcoin iindex options on NASDAQ. 

 

On May 22, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published a 34-page order clearing Nasdaq PHLX to list cash-settled bitcoin index options under the ticker QBTC. The order hands everyday brokerage account holders a direct path to trade bitcoin volatility right alongside their Apple and Nvidia shares, no separate accounts, no crypto wallets, no extra steps.

 

The approval came on an accelerated basis under SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, and it is conditional. Before a single QBTC contract can trade, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission still needs to grant exemptive relief. Bitcoin is legally classified as a commodity in the U.S., so the CFTC gets a say. No timeline has been announced for that step. But the direction things are moving is pretty hard to misread at this point.

 

What QBTC Actually Is

QBTC options are European-style and cash-settled. There is no physical delivery of bitcoin at expiration. When a contract expires, the exchange credits or debits the dollar difference between the strike price and the final index value. No bitcoin wallet. No custody headaches. The contracts track the Nasdaq Bitcoin Index, which represents one one-hundredth of the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index, a benchmark pulling aggregated order book data from eight regulated venues roughly every 200 milliseconds.

 

Unlike options tied to individual spot bitcoin ETFs (say, BlackRock's IBIT), these contracts reference the broader bitcoin market directly. That gives institutional managers a cleaner hedge against general bitcoin price exposure without fund-specific tracking differences bleeding into their positions. It is a subtle but meaningful difference for anyone running a real book.

 

Size Is the Real Story Here

This is where retail traders should actually pay attention. Each QBTC contract delivers exposure equal to exactly one bitcoin, using a 1/100th index scaling factor with a standard $100 multiplier. CME's standard bitcoin options are sized at five bitcoin per contract. At current prices, one CME contract can represent several hundred thousand dollars in notional exposure. Fine for a large hedge fund, not so practical for smaller shops or individual investors trying to manage a position with any precision.

 

CME's bitcoin options also require a dedicated derivatives account, which is another layer of friction before anyone can even place a trade. QBTC options will sit on the same Nasdaq platform as the technology stocks most investors already own. Your existing brokerage account should work. That is a real accessibility improvement, not just a marketing claim.

 

For the record: the per-side position limit is set at 24,000 contracts, which the SEC noted works out to roughly 0.12% of bitcoin's outstanding supply. Minimum price increment is $0.01. The mechanics are deliberately designed to feel familiar to anyone who has ever traded index options.

 

The Regulatory Picture Is Messy, but Getting Better

The road to approval was not totally smooth. CME Group submitted a comment letter last October arguing these contracts fall under the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction. The SEC pushed back, leaning on Section 717 of the Dodd-Frank Act to argue that shared jurisdiction is permissible when the CFTC provides exemptive relief. That jurisdictional tension is still technically unresolved, which is exactly why CFTC sign-off remains the final hurdle.

 

The SEC approval itself came nine months after Nasdaq PHLX originally filed back in September 2025, following multiple rounds of public commentary and extension periods. Nine months is actually fast by historical standards for a novel derivative product. The original spot bitcoin ETF approvals took something like four years from first filing to clearance, under the Gensler administration's much more skeptical posture toward crypto.

 

People following this space closely see QBTC as part of a broader shift that started taking shape in early 2025. The Atkins-led SEC has dropped numerous enforcement actions against crypto firms and moved toward more permissive regulatory frameworks. Add in the ongoing CLARITY Act discussions in Congress, and it feels less like a string of isolated approvals and more like a deliberate effort to build out the full institutional crypto stack inside traditional market infrastructure.

 

What Happens Next

A realistic launch window is probably the second half of 2026, assuming CFTC exemptive relief comes through on a normal timeline. Once trading begins, any U.S. options broker supporting index options should be able to facilitate QBTC trades without any special setup required on the user end.

 

The longer-term picture is worth thinking about. Crypto options volume has grown sharply over the past two years, driven by institutional demand for hedging tools and yield strategies. With QBTC in the mix, investors would have access to spot bitcoin ETFs, ETF-specific options, CME futures, and now broad index-linked options, all sitting within traditional exchange infrastructure. The institutional crypto derivatives stack is starting to look, piece by piece, a lot like what already exists for gold and oil.

 

How quickly the CFTC moves on exemptive relief will say a lot about whether the two agencies are genuinely coordinated on crypto or just moving in parallel. The market is watching that closely. And given everything that has happened over the past 18 months, it would be surprising if this one got stuck for long.

 

The wife of Sébastien Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of The Sandbox, an Ethereum-based virtual world platform, reportedly narrowly escaped being kidnapped at the couple’s home in Villenoy, Seine-et-Marne, France, this week.

 

According to Le Journal du Dimanche, a local French newspaper, one of the kidnappers disguised as a deliveryman wearing a branded vest, knocked on the couple’s home.

 

On opening the gate, five other hooded accomplices charged at Borget’s wife in an attempt to forcefully drag her into a vehicle. However, her cries alerted neighbors, forcing the group to scatter and leave the victim behind.

 

Four suspects escaped in the vehicle, while two others fled on foot and hid nearby. The two suspects attempted to book a ride-hailing car but were later captured by officers from the Meaux Anti-Crime Brigade.

 

The two suspects arrested were identified as Mateo V. and Walid H., reportedly born in 2010 and 2009, respectively, and are both residents of Pantin in Seine-Saint-Denis. They were found carrying a fake handgun, zip tie restraints, and balaclavas.

 

While investigations are ongoing, local news reports have linked the attempted kidnapping to cryptocurrencies, citing an increase in crypto-related wrench attacks and kidnapping incidents reported this year.

 

France Remains a Hotspot for Crypto Wrench Attacks

There has been an increase in attacks on crypto holders, with France leading and becoming the global epicenter.

 

In just the first four months of this year, between 41 and 47 incidents were reported in France, an average of one incident every 2.5 days. The French authorities have also charged 88 suspects, including more than 10 minors, across 12 major investigations, with 75 in pretrial detention.

 

Jameson Lopp, cofounder and chief security officer of Casa, a well-known blockchain security company, has long been tracking these crypto-wrench attacks in a GitHub repository named "physical bitcoin attacks." According to the repository, there have been about 35 recorded incidents this year, with France accounting for 74 percent of those, or 26 incidents in total.

 

To help combat the increasing number of wrench attacks, Binance recently added a withdrawal protection feature to the Binance wallet that activates a lockdown period, preventing withdrawals from the wallet, especially by intruders.

 

 

 

Qivalis, an Amsterdam-based joint venture developing a fully regulated MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin, has expanded its consortium to include 25 new banks.

 

 

With this expansion, the Qivalis consortium now comprises 37 banks across 15 European countries, including major names such as ABN AMRO, Rabobank, Nordea, Intesa Sanpaolo, Banco Sabadell, and Bankinter.

 

Created in early December last year, the Qivalis consortium is a group of European banks that came together to develop a stablecoin pegged to the euro. By launching a euro-pegged stablecoin, Qivalis aimed to create a credible and regulated alternative to the widely used United States dollar stablecoin.

 

The Qivalis euro-backed stablecoin would also eliminate the need for European banks to launch competing bank-issued stablecoins, as it is interoperable and fully compliant with MiCA across the European Union and the European Economic Area.

 

The consortium is currently pursuing an Electronic Money Institution license from De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, with plans to launch a euro-backed stablecoin in the second half of this year.

 

The State of the Stablecoin Market

The stablecoin market continues to grow significantly, with more traditional finance institutions entering and tapping into the expanding sector. According to a recent report, total stablecoin liquidity, or market capitalization, has crossed $320 billion, with US dollar-backed stablecoins accounting for about 95% of the market.

 

Tether (USDT) remains the most widely used US dollar-backed stablecoin, accounting for about 57.96% of the market, or approximately $ 185 billion in market capitalization. USD Coin (USDC) follows, accounting for about 24% of the market and having a market capitalization of roughly $78-79 billion.

 

The euro-denominated stablecoin market still represents a small fraction of the global stablecoin market. According to CoinGecko, euro-denominated stablecoins have a combined market capitalization of roughly $670 million, with EURC from Circle and EURS from Stasis being the two most prominent, with market caps of $436 million and $145 million, respectively.

 

 

Zerohash, a leading crypto infrastructure provider, has received an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license from De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank.

 

The EMI license comes shortly after it secured a Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCAR) license in October 2025 from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM).

 

With the EMI license secured, Zerohash is now the first MiCAR-licensed firm to obtain an Electronic Money Institution license in accordance with the European Banking Authority’s June 2025 No Action Letter and February 2026 clarifications, which gave crypto firms and stablecoin issuers a temporary breathing space to get their payment licenses in order by March 2nd of this year.

 

 

By securing the EMI license, Zerohash positions itself to issue, manage, and support stablecoin-powered payments using e-money tokens across the European Economic Area. Zerohash now has the regulatory basis to integrate crypto and traditional electronic money flows for its institutional clients.

 

"Europe has a massive market for stablecoin applications," said Roeland Goldberg, Managing Director, Europe at Zerohash. "The announcement comes on the heels of accelerating momentum for Zerohash across Europe. In recent months, the company has expanded its European Union presence in Amsterdam and is now powering partners, including Interactive Brokers Europe, in the region."

 

Alongside the previously secured MiCAR license, Zerohash can now serve its institutional clients, including banks, fintechs, brokerages, payment providers, and large enterprises, providing compliant stablecoin settlement, remittances, and digital asset services across Europe.

 

About Zerohash 

Zerohash is a leading infrastructure provider for crypto, stablecoins, and tokenized assets. Through its application programming interface (API) and embeddable developer kit, it enables large institutions, including banks, brokerages, and fintech companies, to integrate crypto trading, stablecoin payments, custody, tokenization, and fiat to crypto and crypto to fiat conversion services into their own platforms, without having to build complex backend infrastructure or navigate regulatory frameworks themselves.

 

Zerohash is currently a licensed money transmitter in 51 United States jurisdictions and serves more than 5 million users across over 190 countries. Its crypto and stablecoin infrastructure has also been used by several institutional firms, including Interactive Brokers, Stripe, Franklin Templeton, and MoneyLion, with its infrastructure also supporting BlackRock’s BUIDL fund.

 

 

Minnesota has enacted a law that allows banks and credit unions in the state to offer cryptocurrency custody services, with the law expected to take effect on Aug. 1, 2026.

 

The bill, HF 3709, was signed into law on Friday by Minnesota state governor Tim Walz, with the state legislature’s website stating that cryptocurrency custody services may now be offered and performed in the state.

 

While this is a significant milestone for crypto adoption in the state, the law also requires banks and credit unions interested in offering crypto custody services to submit a written notice detailing their risk management frameworks to the Minnesota Commissioner of Commerce at least 60 days before commencing such services.

 

The Minnesota Commissioner of Commerce will serve as the primary regulator, overseeing crypto custody services offered by banks and credit unions in the state.

 

Banks and credit unions interested in offering crypto custody services are also required to maintain a comprehensive written policy covering their internal controls, security, risk management, and compliance frameworks, while also segregating their clients’ assets from institutionally owned assets.

 

According to Representative Bernie Perryman, one of the primary sponsors of HF 3709, the legislation aims to establish a trustworthy framework that enables financial institutions to work with and safeguard Minnesotans' crypto assets, especially as crypto becomes more mainstream.

 

“House File 3709 is about ensuring that Minnesota-based financial institutions are allowed to evolve alongside their customers and members rather than forcing Minnesotans to rely on unregulated, out-of-state or offshore providers for services that are already in use today,” Perryman said in a March press release.

 

The passage of HF 3709 comes just a few weeks after the Minnesota governor banned the use and ownership of crypto kiosks and ATMs across the state, citing their growing use in fraud.

 

With the passage of this bill, Minnesota now joins Wyoming, New York, and Virginia, which have passed similar bills that allow banks and credit unions to offer crypto custody services.

 

 

Galaxy Digital has finally gotten what it spent years working toward: full regulatory clearance to operate as a licensed crypto business in New York State. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) granted GalaxyOne Prime NY, a wholly owned subsidiary of Galaxy Digital Inc. (Nasdaq: GLXY), both a BitLicense and a Money Transmission License on Monday, May 18. The move gives the firm direct, regulated access to the most capital-dense institutional market in the United States.

 

For Galaxy, it is a landmark. New York-based registered investment advisors, hedge funds, and family offices can now tap Galaxy's full suite of digital asset trading and custody products through a regulated state-licensed entity. The firm currently manages roughly $9 billion in client assets across its digital asset business, and executives have made no secret of their ambitions to grow that number substantially by pushing deeper into institutional channels.

 

A License That Has Eluded Many

The BitLicense, introduced by NYDFS back in 2015, remains one of the toughest regulatory hurdles in the global crypto industry. The application process involves extensive compliance documentation, capital reserve requirements, anti-money laundering controls, and cybersecurity standards that have tripped up or outright deterred dozens of firms over the years. Some companies, including Paxos and Gemini, have opted instead for a New York Banking Law charter, which carries similar compliance expectations but a different legal structure. Either way, the NYDFS does not make it easy, and the framework has drawn persistent industry criticism over its cost and complexity.

 

Galaxy is only the second company to receive a BitLicense in 2026. Jack Mallers' bitcoin payments firm Strike picked up its approval from NYDFS in March, putting Galaxy in small company. The broader licensed cohort includes the likes of Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle, and PayPal, firms that have become fixtures of mainstream digital finance. Galaxy's inclusion in that group signals how far the company has come from its earlier profile as a more speculative crypto-native outfit.

 

Novogratz Makes the Case Directly

Galaxy founder and CEO Mike Novogratz did not mince words about what the approval means strategically. "New York is home to the deepest pool of institutional capital in the country, and digital assets are no longer sitting at the edge of those allocations," he said in a statement released Monday. "Galaxy was built to meet that demand, and now we can better serve New York's institutions directly."

 

Galaxy has spent the better part of the past three years repositioning itself as a serious financial services operator. The company expanded into data center infrastructure, now operates the 1.6 gigawatt Helios campus in Texas, and has built out a broad product lineup spanning trading, asset management, investment banking, and custody. The New York license slots into that picture as a missing piece that was always going to matter.

 

50 Licenses and Counting

With NYDFS now in the fold, Galaxy's regulatory footprint stretches past 50 licenses worldwide. The company has offices across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and has been methodically acquiring the permissions it needs to operate as a multi-jurisdictional institutional platform. That kind of regulatory breadth is not cheap or quick to build, and it increasingly functions as a competitive moat against crypto-native upstarts that lack the compliance infrastructure to serve sophisticated institutional clients.

 

The timing is notable. Galaxy reported a net loss of $216 million in the first quarter of 2026, driven largely by softer digital asset prices, though the number came in better than what analysts had expected. The stock has continued to trade under pressure. But the BitLicense announcement is a longer-game move. Institutional clients in New York represent a structural revenue opportunity that does not turn on any single quarter's price action. Getting licensed to serve them directly, rather than through workarounds or third-party arrangements, changes the calculus considerably.

 

New York regulators, for their part, have signaled that the BitLicense framework is not going away. Enforcement activity has continued into 2026, and the NYDFS has made clear it sees itself as a baseline standard-setter for crypto businesses operating in the state. For Galaxy, that means the hard work of getting licensed is also a signal to institutional counterparties that the firm has been through the scrutiny and passed. In New York's financial culture, that matters.

 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed an amicus brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit following a United States District Court decision involving Kalshi in Ohio.

 

 

Through this filing, the CFTC seeks to assert its exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets and to overturn the ban previously imposed by Chief Judge Sarah D. Morrison of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

 

“The federal district court in Ohio took an improperly narrow view of the Commission’s jurisdiction, and we are asking the Court of Appeals to correct that error,” said CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig. “As I’ve said repeatedly, the CFTC will not allow overzealous state governments to undermine the agency’s longstanding authority over these markets.”

 

Kalshi’s Case Against Ohio

The March ban on Kalshi by an Ohio district court dates back to early 2025, when the Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC) issued a cease-and-desist order to Kalshi, instructing it to stop offering its sports event contracts in the state, alleging that those contracts were illegal.

 

Following this order, Kalshi sued state regulators and other state officials, seeking a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the cease-and-desist order. However, the case was dismissed when Judge Sarah D. Morrison ruled against Kalshi, allowing state regulators to enforce the ban and later impose a $5 million fine on Kalshi for continuing to offer sports event contracts in the state.

 

Kalshi has now appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, seeking to overturn the ban. In its amicus brief filing, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) not only argues for the removal of the ban but also seeks to protect prediction market companies from what it describes as an ongoing campaign of state encroachment.

 

As part of its protective efforts, the CFTC has engaged in legal disputes with several U.S. states, including Wisconsin, Illinois, Arizona, Connecticut, and New York, over their regulatory stance and enforcement actions against prediction market companies.

 

Despite the challenging regulatory environment faced by prediction market companies, the sector has grown significantly. In 2025, annual trading volume across prediction market platforms rose to approximately $63.5 billion from $15.8 billion in 2024. The number of users across prediction market companies has also increased, with institutional investors showing greater interest and contributing more capital to these platforms.

 

 

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic recently secured $120 million in a Series D funding round led by One Peak, with participation from Nasdaq Ventures, Deutsche Bank, and the British Business Bank. The company is now valued at $670 million.

 

 

According to Elliptic, the funding will be used to accelerate its mission to deliver enterprise-grade on-chain analytics to some of the world’s largest financial institutions, including banks, fintech companies, crypto companies, and government agencies.

 

“As digital assets become more embedded in the global financial system, institutions need trusted infrastructure to manage compliance and risk at scale. Elliptic’s platform plays an important role in providing that infrastructure, helping firms navigate digital asset adoption with confidence and integrity,” said Gary Offner, Senior Vice President and Head of Nasdaq Ventures.

 

Among Elliptic’s expansion plans is scaling its native artificial intelligence compliance system for enterprises. Leveraging its years of experience building one of the most comprehensive and diverse datasets and its ability to process more contextual information per second than competitors, Elliptic plans to build an enterprise-grade compliance system that allows compliance teams to do more with less: alerts resolved in minutes rather than hours, human judgment reserved for where it genuinely matters, and compliance costs falling as volume grows.

 

“As institutional adoption of digital assets accelerates, the demand for scalable compliance solutions has never been higher. Elliptic pioneered the use of blockchain analytics to meet this challenge and has cemented its status as a global leader, screening over 1 billion transactions a week for more than 700 customers in 30 countries,” said Charlotte Lawrence, Managing Director of Direct Equity at the British Business Bank.

 

This capability will also benefit stablecoin and tokenized asset companies that process billions of dollars in transactions. In 2025, about $33 trillion in transactions were processed by stablecoin companies. By leveraging its data intelligence infrastructure, Elliptic enables these companies to meet enterprise-grade compliance requirements in real time, an operational necessity for crypto exchanges that handle and move billions of dollars in crypto daily.

 

About Elliptic 

Elliptic is a London-based blockchain analytics firm that specializes in tools for financial crime risk management, anti-money laundering (AML), transaction monitoring, wallet screening, investigations, and threat intelligence across the global crypto ecosystem.

 

Elliptic currently serves over 700 clients across 30 countries, supports more than 65 blockchain networks, and screens about 1 billion blockchain transactions each week. It has partnered with leading industry players, most recently the layer 1 Solana and the Tempo blockchain networks.

 

 

Foris DAX Middle East FZE, the UAE entity of the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, has received the Stored Value Facilities (SVF) license from the Central Bank of the UAE.

 

The announcement, made on Monday, marks a notable milestone for the crypto exchange, as it is the first Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) in the Emirates to receive the license.

 

 

With the Stored Value Facilities license now secured, Crypto.com can partner with the Dubai Department of Finance, allowing UAE residents to pay government fees with virtual assets, with all transactions settled in UAE dirhams or other stablecoins approved by the UAE central bank.

 

As the only virtual asset provider holding the SVF license in the Emirates, any other entity seeking to offer virtual asset payment services in the region will first need to be onboarded by Crypto.com.

 

“To be the first VASP to receive this license is an incredible achievement and proves our strong commitment to compliance and to advancing the regulated digital assets ecosystem in the UAE,” said Eric Anziani, President and COO of Crypto.com.

 

“We are continuing to expand our presence in this forward-thinking, digitally savvy market and remain committed to offering innovative products and services that are convenient and seamless for digital asset holders,” he added.

 

The new SVF license comes about a year after Crypto.com received a full VASP license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), allowing it to offer crypto derivatives products, including futures, perpetual swap contracts, and contracts for difference (CFDs).

 

Derivatives trading continues to grow, accounting for about 70-75% of total crypto trading volume. In 2025, global crypto derivatives trading volume reached approximately $85.7 trillion, with analysts projecting the market to continue expanding significantly.

 

The State of Crypto in the United Arab Emirates

The UAE, over the last few years, has emerged as one of the foremost crypto jurisdictions. According to the World Crypto Rankings 2025 report by Bybit and DL Research, the UAE leads the entire Middle East and North Africa region in crypto adoption, ranking fifth globally behind Singapore, the United States, Lithuania, and Switzerland.

 

To position itself as a major crypto hub, the UAE has introduced several crypto-friendly policies, including exemptions from VAT and personal income tax on virtual assets and crypto trading. 

 

The country has also passed legislation that brings all virtual asset entities, including DeFi protocols, stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, decentralized exchanges, wallets, bridges, and supporting blockchain infrastructure, under the authority of the Central Bank. The move effectively gives the digital asset ecosystem a recognized legal framework under federal law.