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Insights

Working notes from the people who file the applications — what the rules actually say, what they cost, and where founders lose time. Written against the authorities, not against a brochure.

The archive

Briefings on Virtual assets

10 pieces Clear filter
  1. Virtual assets Woman writing at a desk beside a glass cube holding a single coin inside a lit ring

    Being paid in crypto does not make you a crypto business

    A client offers to settle your invoice in tokens, or a co-founder wants the treasury held in them. 22 min read
  2. Virtual assets Woman reads a sealed sheet beside stacked boxes, an electricity meter, a lit UAE map and a bitcoin coin

    Mining is licensed as industry, powered as industry and taxed as a business. The cryptocurrency part is the least regulated thing about it.

    Proof-of-work mining for your own account is one of the few things you can do with a digital asset in the UAE without a virtual asset regulator's permission. 13 min read
  3. Virtual assets Man in a kandura passes a gold coin across a marble desk to a man in a suit

    Somebody else has to sell your token

    The idea that a company can fund itself by creating a token and selling it to whoever wants one is the single most durable myth in this market. 18 min read
  4. Virtual assets Woman holds a sealed certificate beside stacked panels ticked and crossed, a lit city model on the counter

    VARA has already answered the activity name on your licence

    Before arguing about whether your crypto product sits inside Dubai's regulated perimeter, check whether the regulator has already published an answer for the exact activity name your free zone sold you. 17 min read
  5. Virtual assets A woman holds open a ledger showing two seal-stamped pages, one marked with a tower, one with stacked coins

    A crypto company in Dubai needs two licences, not one

    Most advice on crypto in Dubai names a free zone and stops. 12 min read
  6. Virtual assets Man reads a sheet beside a card rack topped with a bitcoin symbol and a boxed gold key

    A Dubai crypto licence covers named activities, and everything it does not name needs a separate permission

    A virtual asset permission in Dubai is granted activity by activity, and the activities not printed on it are not included. 13 min read
  7. Virtual assets A woman in a hijab sorts loose sheets between two tall tabbed stacks resting on labelled black trays

    Half the documents in a crypto licence file are produced by somebody who does not work for you

    The published document lists for a UAE virtual asset licence are short and easy to find. 13 min read
  8. Virtual assets Woman considers two trays of coins stamped with currency symbols beside a brass balance scale

    A UAE company can hold, receive and spend crypto without a virtual asset licence. The line is crossed by handling somebody else’s — and that is easier to do by accident than the market admits.

    Six positions an ordinary UAE business can take toward digital assets. 16 min read
  9. Virtual assets Woman sets a stack of documents into a row of paper piles divided by gold arches

    A virtual asset licence is the last thing you apply for, not the first

    Every published sequence for a Dubai virtual asset business puts the application near the front. The regulators put it at the end. 16 min read
  10. Virtual assets A woman in a hijab leans over a lit relief map of the Emirates, each region carrying a miniature building

    There is no UAE crypto regulator. There are five, and the verb your company has not chosen yet decides which one reads your file.

    The question reaches a board as one question — do we need a crypto licence. 13 min read

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