ARP Digital, a regulated digital capital infrastructure platform, has secured a Broker-Dealer licence from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), the independent regulator established in 2022 to oversee virtual asset activity in the emirate. The licence authorizes ARP Digital to provide regulated conversion between digital assets and local fiat currency, marking the firm's expansion from Bahrain into the UAE—the largest digital asset market in the Gulf region, which received more than $56 billion in digital asset value across 2024 and 2025.

Under the new licence, ARP Digital will offer UAE-domiciled corporates, capital markets participants, and qualified investors regulated conversion of digital assets and stablecoins into UAE dirham. The company will act as a regulated gateway for channeling digital asset wealth into local assets, a move it says will support deeper institutional participation in the UAE market.

"Securing this licence is a defining milestone for our business and reinforces our commitment to a compliance-first approach," said Abdulaziz Kanoo, Co-Founder of ARP Digital. "The UAE has rapidly established itself as one of the region's most important digital asset markets, driven by clear regulation and growing institutional demand. With this approval, we are well positioned to provide institutions with a regulated, secure gateway to access digital assets and participate in the next phase of the region's digital economy."

The service addresses what ARP Digital describes as a longstanding gap in the UAE market. While the country holds a significant concentration of digital asset wealth across both individual and institutional holders, it has until recently lacked compliant infrastructure for deploying that capital into local assets. The UAE's evolving regulatory framework—spanning VARA in Dubai, the Abu Dhabi Global Market's financial free zone, and federal-level oversight—has been drawing a growing roster of global digital asset firms seeking licensed access to Gulf capital pools. ARP Digital aims to fill this void by providing institutions with the governance, compliance standards, and transparency needed to participate with confidence.

"The appetite from corporates has always been there, particularly in markets like the UAE," said Abdulla Kanoo, Co-Founder of ARP Digital. "Until now, however, the regulated infrastructure needed to deploy digital asset capital at scale simply didn't exist. As digital assets become an increasingly important component of global capital markets, we are building the infrastructure that allows financial institutions to integrate them into their operations."

ARP Digital already holds a Category 3 Capital Markets Crypto Assets Service Provider licence from the Central Bank of Bahrain, one of the first GCC regulators to establish a comprehensive crypto-asset framework. Under that licence, the firm has processed over $3.5 billion in volume for more than 450 institutional and corporate counterparties, recording 4x year-on-year growth in 2025.

The VARA licence makes the UAE ARP Digital's second regulated market and brings the firm under two supervised Gulf regulatory frameworks. The company stated that it builds its regulated infrastructure in the Gulf specifically to serve the Gulf, and plans to extend its coverage as demand for regulated digital capital in the region continues to grow.