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- Coinbase is using Abu Dhabi to test whether regulated securities can move through blockchain infrastructure without losing traditional investor protections.
- The model could remove parts of the brokerage and banking stack, but it does not make tokenized securities permissionless or exempt from compliance controls.
- Tokenization does not make every digital stock identical to the underlying share; investor rights still depend on the legal structure and prospectus behind each asset.
- The UAE is becoming a two-part international base for Coinbase, with Abu Dhabi focused on onchain capital markets and Dubai on crypto derivatives.
Coinbase’s latest Abu Dhabi approval is more than another international crypto license. The company is building a market where regulated securities can move through blockchain wallets without abandoning the legal protections attached to traditional investments.
On August 11, Coinbase said it had received Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market. The permission allows it to arrange deals in investments and provide custody as it develops an international hub for tokenized securities. Coinbase described the approval as the regulatory foundation for that business.
The significance lies in what Coinbase is trying to combine: regulated ownership rights, direct wallet access and blockchain-based transfer infrastructure inside one supervised market.
Project Diamond Has Moved Beyond the Sandbox
The Abu Dhabi strategy has been developing for several years.
ADGM introduced a regulatory framework for crypto assets in 2018 and later published dedicated guidance for digital securities, covering issuance, listings, trading, settlement and custody.
Coinbase entered that environment in December 2023 with Project Diamond, an institutional platform for creating, buying and selling digitally native assets. The project entered ADGM’s RegLab and was initially aimed at registered institutional users outside the United States.
The new FSRA permission moves the project beyond a controlled regulatory experiment. Coinbase now has approval for activities needed to arrange investment transactions and provide custody around tokenized securities.
That progression explains why Abu Dhabi has become the center of the company’s tokenization strategy. ADGM already treats blockchain-based securities as regulated financial instruments rather than placing them in a separate legal category.
Wallet Access Removes Some Intermediaries, Not Regulation
Coinbase says investors will be able to transact in digital securities without first establishing a traditional brokerage account or correspondent banking relationship. Access can instead begin with a compatible wallet.
The model does not remove compliance controls.
Coinbase says transfers will remain subject to sanctions screening, and assets can be frozen or seized at the wallet level when required. Custody, identity checks, ownership verification and enforcement therefore remain part of the system even when the investor interacts through blockchain infrastructure.
The change is mainly in distribution. Instead of requiring the same chain of brokerage and banking relationships used in traditional markets, some of those functions can be handled through regulated wallets and onchain settlement.
The Legal Structure Behind the Token Still Matters
Coinbase says securities issued and registered through the ADGM structure will be fully backed by underlying shares. Verified holders can receive economic and governance rights, including dividends and voting rights.
The legal form of each product, however, determines how those rights work in practice.
ADGM’s official register of approved prospectuses lists Coinbase Onchain SPV Ltd as the issuer of NVIDIA CB Certificates, or NVDAc. The instrument is classified as a “Certificate over Shares,” with its primary prospectus approved on August 4.
A wallet holder is therefore not necessarily holding an ordinary company share in token form. The blockchain instrument can sit above underlying shares through a separate issuing structure, with the prospectus defining the investor’s rights.
Coinbase says certain rights, including voting and redemption, depend on whether a holder meets defined vesting conditions. Dividends are automatically reinvested, while exercising redemption rights may require a brokerage or bank account capable of receiving proceeds.
The distinction matters because tokenization can preserve many features of equity ownership without making the token legally identical to the underlying share.
Why Abu Dhabi Fits the Model
ADGM’s regulatory structure is designed to accommodate securities that use blockchain infrastructure without removing them from conventional financial law.
Under the FSRA regime, a digital token with the characteristics of a security is regulated as a security. The framework covers offers, listings, market infrastructure, custody and secondary-market activity. ADGM outlines that approach in its digital-asset framework.
Coinbase Institutional Co-CEO Brett Tejpaul said major financial centers have struggled to create a structure where tokenized equities can operate simultaneously as regulated securities, blockchain-native assets and instruments capable of interacting with onchain financial applications.
Abu Dhabi gives Coinbase a place to test that model under an established securities regulator rather than through an unregulated offshore structure.
Coinbase Is Splitting Its UAE Strategy in Two
The tokenization hub also fits into a broader division of Coinbase’s UAE operations.
Abu Dhabi is becoming the base for tokenized securities and onchain capital markets. Dubai, meanwhile, is supporting Coinbase’s international derivatives business through Deribit.
Coinbase is combining its International Exchange infrastructure with Deribit, which it acquired in 2025. The company currently plans to migrate International Exchange positions and balances to the unified Deribit platform on September 9, 2026. Deribit FZE operates under Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority for relevant exchange and broker-dealer activities. Coinbase has published details of that transition for international clients.
The two jurisdictions therefore serve different parts of the same international strategy: Abu Dhabi for regulated tokenized securities, and Dubai for crypto derivatives.
The License Leaves the Hard Questions Unanswered
The regulatory approval establishes the legal foundation for Coinbase’s tokenization business, but it does not yet show whether a liquid market will develop around it.
Coinbase has not published a complete list of securities that will be available through the hub, the countries from which investors will be eligible, the fee structure, expected secondary-market liquidity or a timetable for broad availability.
There are also operational questions around how far tokenized securities can interact with DeFi applications while remaining subject to wallet screening, asset freezes and the conditions written into individual prospectuses.
Those details will determine whether the model meaningfully changes access to capital markets or simply creates a different technical route to securities that remain difficult to buy, transfer or exit.
The clearest tests will be practical: which assets become available, who can access them, how easily they can move between approved wallets and markets, and whether enough buyers and sellers arrive to create durable liquidity.
This version removes the repeated “regulated but not permissionless” thesis from the ending, compresses the 2018–2023 history into one chronology, places the NVDAc reality check exactly where the legal-rights discussion needs it, and ends on the measurable business questions rather than another abstract conclusion.
