The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), the financial regulatory agency of the special economic zone, the Dubai International Financial Centre has recognized two new crypto tokens TonCoin (TON), and Ripple’s XRP. TON and XRP now join DFSA’s initially accepted crypto tokens, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum, and Litecoin.
In total in just one year DFSA has recognized five crypto tokens. The recognition comes into effect from the date of this Notice and remains in effect until further notice.
Licensed virtual asset firms within the DIFC will now be able to incorporate XRP and TON into their virtual asset services. XRP and TON now stand to benefit from legal and regulatory clarity in the DIFC, and will be available for use by institutions located in the DIFC to accelerate faster, more efficient global value exchange.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said: “Dubai continues to demonstrate global leadership when it comes to the regulation of virtual assets and nurturing innovation. It’s refreshing to see the DFSA encourage the adoption and use of digital assets such as XRP to position Dubai as a leading financial services hub intent on attracting foreign investment and accelerating economic growth. Ripple will continue to double down on its presence in Dubai and we look forward to continuing to work closely with regulators to realize crypto’s full potential.”
The recognition of TON comes a few days after TON set a world record for network speed. The TON team conducted a public test of blockchain speed. The developers reported that in 12 minutes of the experiment about 42 million transactions were performed, and the maximum speed amounted to 108,409 transactions per second.
At the time of writing, the TON coin is trading near the $2.20 mark. The TVL of the TON network is around $9.8 million at the time of publication.
DFSA in the first year since launching its comprehensive framework on November 1st 2022 for regulating financial services has achieved a lot. The launch of the crypto tokens regime follows DFSA’s introduction of the Investment Token regime in October 2021.
The DFSA set out to regulate Crypto Token businesses with the intention of fostering innovation in a measured, responsible and transparent manner while still meeting the DFSA’s regulatory objectives. Under the regime, firms in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) can apply for and obtain a license to provide financial services with Crypto Tokens in or from the DIFC.
The DFSA’s regulatory regime is largely technology-neutral, allowing firms to provide a wide range of financial services with Crypto Tokens. The framework is designed to accommodate firms who want to operate a Crypto Token market, provide custodial services, manage clients’ assets, establish or manage funds, or provide other financial services. The rules cover a wide range of risks relating to financial crime, technology, governance, custody, disclosure, market abuse and fraud.
Since its inception the crypto token regime has received great interest including enquiries from 100+ firms have inquired regarding operating a Crypto Token business, 5 Crypto Token variations were issued (a mix of funds and trading business); 1 license to offer Investment Tokens was issued (to tokenize units of a fund); and five crypto tokens have now been recognized.
DFSA will be launching its next set of proposals focusing on custody; financial Crime; staking for Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms; and Fund Management.
