Coinbase Wins Abu Dhabi License for Tokenized Securities Hub

Coinbase has received a Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market to build what it calls its international tokenization hub, clearing the exchange to arrange deals in investments and provide custody ahead of a launch of tokenized securities.

Tokenized securities registered and issued in ADGM will be backed by the underlying shares under FSRA supervision, and verified token holders will receive shareholder rights including dividends and voting, Coinbase said. Investors will need a wallet rather than a brokerage account or a correspondent banking relationship. Every transfer is subject to ongoing sanctions screening, and Coinbase said it can freeze or seize assets at the wallet level where required.

The company first described the product in June, saying tokens backed 1:1 by the underlying shares would be available only in eligible jurisdictions outside the United States.

"ADGM issued one of the world's first regulatory frameworks for virtual assets in 2018. That reflected a genuine institutional commitment to innovation-forward regulation, executed with the rigor that global financial markets require. No major financial center has yet built a framework that treats tokenized equities simultaneously as securities, blockchain-native tokens, and DeFi-composable assets," said Brett Tejpaul, Co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional.

Coinbase said 4 billion people worldwide cannot access capital markets, and described the license as its first step toward changing that. The company did not cite a source for the figure.

Vested Holders Only

Footnotes to the announcement narrow the shareholder rights described in the body text. Only "Vested Holders" may exercise voting rights over the underlying shares or qualify for redemption rights.

Dividends are automatically reinvested rather than paid out, a feature Coinbase said benefits both vested and unvested holders. Exercising redemption rights requires a brokerage or bank account capable of receiving the proceeds. Trades in the tokens themselves require neither.

Coinbase's tokenization product page lists the service as "coming soon." The announcement set no launch date, named no listed equities, and did not identify which Coinbase entity holds the permission.

From RegLab To License

Coinbase has been working through ADGM since December 2023, when it said Project Diamond, an institutional smart-contract platform built on Base, would enter the FSRA's RegLab sandbox. It had issued and matured a USDC-denominated debt instrument in a pilot the month before.

The exchange is running two businesses in the Gulf. Alongside the Abu Dhabi tokenization hub, Coinbase said it is establishing a global derivatives hub in Dubai, where Deribit said in April 2024 it was relocating its global headquarters after winning conditional approval from the emirate's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority. Coinbase closed the Deribit acquisition in August 2025, when the options venue carried about $60 billion in open interest.

Arvind Ramamurthy, Chief Market Development Officer at ADGM, called the hub "a strong endorsement of Abu Dhabi's growing role in shaping the future of global finance" in a statement carried in the Coinbase post. ADGM had not published its own announcement of the permission at the time of writing.

Crowded Onchain Equity Market

Tokenized public equities are a $2.49 billion market, up 11.77% over the past 30 days, with 1.13 million holders and $21.5 billion in monthly transfer volume, according to rwa.xyz. The largest individual positions are shares in Securitize itself, followed by a tokenized Strategy preferred share issued through Backed's xStocks and SanDisk stock issued through bStocks.

Coinbase is not the only firm issuing tokenized equities under ADGM rules. rwa.xyz lists the bStocks tokens on BNB Chain as issued by BTech Holdings Limited, a UAE entity, under ADGM's Financial Services and Markets Regulations.

Coinbase shares traded at $148.39 midday Tuesday, down 0.2%, near the bottom of a 52-week range of $139.11 to $402.16.