While Dubai's regulations are widely welcomed, some companies are concerned about the costs.
- Dubai’s Virtual Assets Authority is looking at ways to reduce the costs for companies to comply with its rules.
- Dubai introduced a cryptocurrency regulatory regime last year.
The head of Dubai’s virtual assets regulator said he wants to find ways to reduce costs for small cryptocurrency companies.
“There are a lot of things I’m looking at right now to try and make the regime and the regulation work for everybody,” Matthew White, CEO of Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA), said at Paris Blockchain Week on Wednesday. “One of them is finding a way to deal with the compliance costs for smaller entities.”
VARA is the only digital asset regulator in the UAE and one of seven regulators in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai announced its cryptocurrency rules last year and was generally welcomed by the cryptocurrency industry. However, some companies are concerned that the costs will be high.
The rules stipulate that companies need to be authorized to operate in the country. Crypto exchange Crypto.com, Deribit’s Dubai-based subsidiary and crypto hedge fund Nine Blocks are among the companies that have since received licenses to operate.
“Not many people have the resources to be able to take on custody, which is what we’re seeing, so we’re looking at structures where, for example, we can have larger market participants hosting smaller market participants,” White said.