Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Crypto Market 2026: From Crypto Adoption to Regulated Financial Rails

Key takeaways

• Domestic payments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are reserved for licensed Dirham tokens, and registered foreign stablecoins are confined to crypto settlement.
• Tokenised RWAs in the Gulf region are advancing fastest where it serves institutions, through bank-issued digital bonds and Abu Dhabi-domiciled equity wrappers, rather than through retail property tokens.
• Outside the UAE, progress ranges from Bahrain’s first stablecoin issuer license to Kuwait’s outright ban on virtual assets.

When AMINA Bank AG (“AMINA”) last assessed the GCC region in May 2025, the case for the Gulf rested on Western regulatory lag, progressive local rules and deep pools of capital. The first premise has largely expired. The United States enacted the GENIUS Act for stablecoins in July 2025, the EU’s Markets in Cryptoassets (MiCA) Regulation’s last transitional periods expired in July 2026 and Hong Kong licensed two stablecoin issuers from 36 applicants in April 2026. The region’s physical security, [assumed] [which felt more stable] in 2025, was tested when US and Israeli carried out strikes on Iran on 28 February 2026, which drew Iranian retaliation across the Gulf.

Since May 2025, the UAE has been wiring digital assets into its monetary and banking system. Abu Dhabi’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) also authorised Binance’s global exchange in December 2025, nine months after the Abu Dhabi investor MGX took a $2 billion stake in Binance, paid in stablecoins.

AMINA’s assessment is that the Gulf’s financial industry advantage in 2026 is monetary integration rather than regulatory speed. That advantage is real, but it is concentrated in the UAE, largely unmeasured and now weighed against security risk.

The UAE still has five relevant authorities, but the federal layer now sets the outer boundary. Federal Decree-Law No. 6 of 2025 brings virtual asset payment services inside the licensing perimeter of the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) and applies that perimeter regardless of the technology used, with a one-year transition that ended in September 2026. On 1 January 2026 the federal securities regulator was reconstituted as the Capital Market Authority (CMA), which has since issued a new framework for virtual asset service providers. In June [2026], the CMA’s Resolution No. 16 of 2026 allowed CBUAE-licensed institutions other than insurers to conduct those activities with CMA authorisation, in principle from their existing entity, although the practical mechanics have yet to be specified.

Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) agreed mutual recognition of licences with the federal regulator in August 2025, and the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) shifted token due diligence to firms from 12 January 2026, although it still decides which fiat-backed tokens qualify.

For banks, virtual asset services can now be planned inside a core license rather than a separate subsidiary. For exchanges, custodians and token issuers, the choice of perimeter still matters, because the federal and Dubai recognition arrangement does not extend to the DIFC or ADGM.

Treating the GCC as one [cryptoasset] market overstates its readiness. Outside the UAE, only Bahrain licenses crypto service providers and stablecoin issuers, while Saudi Arabia and Qatar are developing tokenisation without licensing retail crypto platforms.

Figure 1: GCC digital asset regimes at a glance, October 2026

Sources: CBUAE, UAE CMA, VARA, DFSA, FSRA. Saudi Press Agency, Central Bank of Bahrain, QFC, Greenberg Traurig, Al Tamimi, Gulf News, Mondaq, Addleshaw Goddard, AMINA Bank.

The most consequential change is a payments rule. Under the CBUAE’s Payment Token Services Regulation, only licensed Dirham payment tokens may be used to pay for goods and services in the UAE. Foreign stablecoins may be used only to buy virtual assets, and only once registered; the first registered token, USDU, launched in January 2026.

Supply has followed. AE Coin, privately issued and licensed by the CBUAE, was recognised as a payment method for federal government authorities in February 2026. Zand won approval for Zand AED, issued on public blockchains, in November 2025; IHC, Sirius and First Abu Dhabi Bank in February 2026; and RAKBank holds The CBUAE’s own Digital Dirham made a first government payment in a November 2025 pilot, after a July 2025 central bank report pointed to a near-term launch. The central bank had not announced a full public rollout by October 2026.

This is a deliberate two-rail design. Domestic commerce is reserved for the Dirham, while Dollar tokens, which account for more than 99% of global stablecoin supply, are confined to crypto settlement. For banks and payment firms, that means choosing a local issuer, managing Dirham-Dollar conversion and checking the registration of any Dollar token used.

What is missing is evidence of use. AMINA found no published circulation or payment data for any Dirham token. The best regional proxy, Chainalysis, estimated that the UAE received more than $56 billion in on-chain value in the year to June 2025, up 33% and led by large institutional transfers, while small retail transfers through merchant services grew 88%. That period predates most Dirham token approvals; the figures rely on web-based attribution, and the 2026 regional update [from Chainalysis] had not been published at the time of writing.

Three distinct models are emerging at markedly different scales.

The first model tokenises local property through state land registries. The Dubai Land Department opened secondary trading in about 7.8 million property tokens on 20 February 2026, after a pilot that had tokenised roughly $5 million of property, about 0.03% of the AED 60 billion, about $16 billion, projected for 2033. In Riyadh, the Real Estate General Authority completed the Kingdom’s first title-deed tokenisation in November 2025 and plans to open it to PropTech firms through a regulatory sandbox.

The second model is institutional debt. Between July 2025 and January 2026, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Qatar National Bank, Doha Bank and Emirates NBD issued digitally native bonds worth roughly $1 billion combined, although secondary trading remains limited. Two of the four issuers are Qatari banks, incorporated in a (Qatar) that does not yet permit crypto services: institutional tokenisation does not depend on crypto licensing.

The third model uses Abu Dhabi as legal infrastructure for global assets. Binance’s bStocks, issued by an ADGM vehicle under FSRA-approved prospectuses, began trading in June 2026, and AMINA’s analysis of tokenised equities found that Abu Dhabi had become the default issuance domicile for exchange-sponsored stock wrappers. Holders of bStocks receive economic exposure, not ownership of the underlying shares.

Tokenisation in the Gulf is therefore advancing fastest where it serves existing institutions. Kearney and Ctrl Alt put the regional opportunity at nearly $500 billion by 2030, an estimate of addressable value rather than a forecast of issuance; observed issuance remains a small fraction of it.

War has made resilience a diligence item

After Iranian strikes hit the UAE, the authorities closed the Abu Dhabi and Dubai stock exchanges on 2 and 3 March. Crypto markets kept trading, and Reuters reported that UAE crypto firms appeared resilient thanks to cloud-based operations, although one source said many investors and entrepreneurs had left temporarily. TOKEN2049 Dubai was postponed to April 2027. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted for months, and in October 2026, Iran was still setting conditions for reopening it.

Sovereign investors held their positions: second-quarter 13F filings by Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council show 22.9 million IBIT shares between them, worth about $764 million and unchanged from the first quarter. That exposure sits in a US-listed ETF. However, a reminder that Gulf capital is not the same as Gulf market depth.

On-chain infrastructure proved more resilient than the physical economy, but a hub ultimately depends on people. Institutions should now treat the location of staff, signing keys and contingency sites as explicit risks rather than assumptions.

The UK’s full cryptoasset regulatory regime starts on 25 October 2027, Singapore is consulting on recognising some foreign-issued stablecoins beyond its domestic regime, and Switzerland has consulted on new payment and crypto institution licences. The UAE’s lead now rests on integration rather than timing, and its potential weaknesses are five overlapping authorities, implementation detail still emerging, scant public data and a security premium its competitors do not carry. Cross-border access did improve when the EU removed the UAE from its AML high-risk list in 2025.

The UAE is, in a specific sense, becoming a place where regulated institutions can issue, settle and hold digital assets inside the national monetary and banking perimeter. The GCC as a bloc, is not. Saudi Arabia’s scale, Bahrain’s stablecoin rulebook and Qatar’s bank-led digital bonds have yet to produce connected regional markets, and Kuwait remains closed.

Five developments will help decide whether ambition becomes lasting activity: the Digital Dirham’s public rollout, published circulation data for Dirham tokens, how the CBUAE enforces its wider perimeter after the transition, whether Saudi Arabia introduces a licensing regime and whether the Gulf’s security situation normalises. The rulebook is largely written. Evidence of use is what the next year has to supply.

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