Securitize Wraps Roubini's SEC-Registered ETF as Dubai VARA Digital Security

Securitize has been selected to tokenize economist Nouriel Roubini's Atlas America Fund into USAFi, a digital security issued under Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority and custodied at Bank of New York, designed to give institutional collateral round-the-clock portability.

The product is backed by the Atlas America Fund, an SEC-registered, actively managed ETF trading on Nasdaq under the ticker USAF, with reserve assets held at BNY. Roubini's firm, Atlas Capital Team, announced the structure Monday alongside a whitepaper co-authored by Roubini, per a press release published June 23. Bloomberg reported the story.

Collateral for DeFi Rails

USAFi is issued under VARA's Asset Referenced Virtual Asset Rulebook, the Dubai regulator's framework for tokens collateralized by real-world assets. The structure is designed to let the underlying ETF trade permissionlessly with 24/7 accessibility, targeting institutional users outside the United States who need portable, regulated collateral on DeFi rails. Since inception 19 months ago, USAF has posted a cumulative return of 11.11% with annualized volatility of 5.47% and a Sharpe ratio of 0.55, according to the Atlas press release. The fund invests across U.S. Treasuries, gold, REITs, and food and strategic commodities.

Reza Bundy, CEO of Atlas Capital Team, described USAFi as "the foundation the digital economy has been missing, a regulated wealth-preservation strategy backed by real-world assets, in a form digital finance can actually use."

Roubini's Pivot

Roubini built his public profile partly on repeated criticism of digital assets, calling Bitcoin worthless and DeFi a speculative playground. His whitepaper statement drew a clear demarcation: "For years I argued that most digital assets offered no protection from this, because they had no real assets behind them. What Atlas has built is different." He cited trade wars, sanctions, and persistent inflation as the impetus to shift from criticism to participation.

The launch extends Securitize's institutional tokenization franchise, which already includes BlackRock's BUIDL fund, Hamilton Lane's HLSCOPE on TRON, and a FINRA broker-dealer approval for custodying tokenized securities. Atlas targets a Q3 2026 launch for USAFi, per the press release.