Coinbase Picks Abu Dhabi For Tokenized Securities Hub
CoinDesk reported that Coinbase secured ADGM permission to arrange investment deals and custody tokenized securities as it builds an Abu Dhabi hub for tokenized shares.
Coinbase is using Abu Dhabi as the regulatory base for an international tokenized-securities push, CoinDesk reported, after the exchange secured Financial Services Permission from the Abu Dhabi Global Market regulator.
The permission expands the exchange’s regulated activity beyond spot crypto markets by covering investment-deal arrangement and safekeeping for tokenized securities outside the United States.
The approval came Tuesday from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority, the regulator inside ADGM.
ADGM Permission Covers Securities Activity
The new hub is meant to bring traditional securities onchain from the UAE capital rather than only list crypto-native assets.
The planned product would use digital securities backed by underlying shares, with the tokens registered and issued in ADGM under FSRA oversight.
That makes the regulatory perimeter the centre of the story.
The planned instruments are described as securities backed by shares, blockchain-native tokens and assets that could be used inside decentralised-finance markets.
Brett Tejpaul, co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, said no major financial centre had yet built a framework that treats tokenized equities across all three categories at the same time.
The three-part treatment would put share backing, token issuance and DeFi compatibility under one supervised structure rather than leaving each function in a separate market lane.
Abu Dhabi Adds Another Coinbase Base
Abu Dhabi already had a record in digital-asset rulemaking before the approval.
ADGM put virtual-asset rules in place in 2018, then drew crypto and tokenization companies looking for a supervised regional base.
The prior UAE footprint included Project Diamond, which the asset-management arm initiated in 2023 for institutional investors to issue and trade digital debt instruments using Base, the company’s Ethereum-based blockchain network.
Last month, Mubadala Capital tokenized one private-market investment strategy through UAE-based KAIO on blockchains including Base, with Coinbase taking exposure to the fund.
The sequence gives Coinbase two UAE lanes for overseas growth: derivatives in Dubai and tokenized securities in Abu Dhabi.
It also gives ADGM a large exchange name for a market structure that depends on legal treatment, custody permissions and investor access rules as much as blockchain settlement.
Coinbase now has derivatives activity in Dubai and a tokenization hub in the UAE capital.
CoinDesk did not name the first issuer or launch date.
