Coinbase Wins ADGM Licence to Build International Tokenised Securities Hub in Abu Dhabi
Coinbase Wins ADGM Licence to Build International Tokenised Securities Hub in Abu Dhabi #
Coinbase has received a Financial Services Permission (FSP) from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), allowing the exchange to establish its international tokenisation hub within Abu Dhabi’s financial free zone.
The licence covers two activities: arranging deals in investments and providing custody of digital securities. Those permissions give Coinbase the regulatory basis to issue and hold tokenised securities backed by real underlying shares. The company said all tokenised securities registered and issued through the hub will be fully backed by their underlying shares and fall under FSRA oversight.
The first planned product is the Apple CB Certificate, a tokenised instrument backed by AAPL shares. Coinbase said investors will be able to trade the token using only a crypto wallet, though converting back to cash will still require a brokerage or bank account. No launch date has been disclosed.
Brett Tejpaul, co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, said Abu Dhabi’s regulatory environment was uniquely suited to the venture, noting that no other major financial centre has built a framework that simultaneously treats tokenised equities as securities, blockchain-native tokens, and assets composable with decentralised finance protocols. ADGM’s virtual-asset framework dates to 2018, and a March 2026 guidance update extended it to cover tokenised securities and DeFi.
The Abu Dhabi hub is part of a broader UAE expansion. Coinbase has operated a derivatives business in Dubai under a separate licence from the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) since October 2025. The company describes the two operations as its most ambitious businesses outside the United States: a tokenised-securities and on-chain capital markets hub in Abu Dhabi, and a global derivatives exchange in Dubai.
Coinbase said the complexity and cost of traditional market infrastructure exclude billions of potential investors from capital markets, and described the Abu Dhabi hub as a first step toward addressing those barriers.
Arvind Ramamurthy, Chief Market Development Officer at ADGM, said Coinbase’s decision to base its international tokenisation operations in the emirate reflects the strength of Abu Dhabi’s regulatory framework and its ambition to be a leading test bed for blockchain-based financial services at scale.
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