VARA, Securitize MoU Signals Dubai’s Next Tokenization Phase

Dubai has spent the past several years building a regulatory framework for virtual assets. Its latest agreement with Securitize points toward the next challenge: developing the institutional infrastructure needed to make regulated tokenized markets work at scale.

Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) and institutional tokenization platform Securitize have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support the development of tokenization and digital-asset infrastructure across the emirate.

The significance of the agreement goes beyond a conventional regulator-industry partnership. Dubai’s first phase of tokenization has focused heavily on establishing regulatory pathways for virtual assets and tokenized financial products. The VARA–Securitize agreement points toward a second layer of market development: the institutional infrastructure required to issue, distribute, trade, hold and settle those assets within a regulated environment.

The MoU creates a framework for the two parties to explore tokenization initiatives, including projects initiated or facilitated by VARA, alongside ecosystem development, market education, talent development and data-driven research.

It does not constitute a new license or regulatory approval for Securitize, nor does it appoint the company as VARA’s official infrastructure provider.

From regulatory framework to market infrastructure

VARA has established requirements governing virtual-asset activities in Dubai, including rules covering virtual-asset issuance.

But functioning tokenized markets require more than rules governing who can issue an asset and under what conditions. They also require infrastructure for issuance and ownership records, distribution, trading, custody and settlement.

Securitize has built institutional tokenization infrastructure across these areas and works with major asset managers including BlackRock, Apollo, Hamilton Lane, KKR and VanEck on tokenized funds and other real-world assets. The company said it had more than $5 billion in assets under management as of July 2026.

The company has also expanded its role in onchain capital raising, including through its work with Cantor Fitzgerald on tokenized capital-markets infrastructure.

The relevance of the MoU therefore lies in the potential connection between VARA’s regulatory framework and Securitize’s institutional tokenization experience.

The agreement does not establish that Securitize will provide infrastructure for VARA or for Dubai’s tokenized markets generally. It instead creates a channel through which the regulator and an established tokenization platform can explore projects and market-development initiatives together.

Securitize already has exposure to VARA’s framework

The partnership also builds on Securitize’s existing activity in Dubai.

The company has worked with Atlas Capital on USAFi, a digital security backed by the Atlas America Fund. Securitize has described the product as its first asset issued under Dubai’s VARA Asset-Referenced Virtual Asset framework.

That existing project gives the new MoU added significance. Securitize has already gained practical exposure to Dubai’s regulatory environment through an individual tokenization project; the new agreement broadens that relationship toward potential initiatives involving the wider ecosystem and projects initiated or facilitated by VARA.

Dubai is building more than an issuance market

The broader Dubai market is also beginning to develop other components of a tokenization stack.

Dubai Land Department’s real-estate tokenization initiative, for example, introduced blockchain-based infrastructure for representing property interests and distributing them through a regulated framework. The project uses the XRP Ledger and forms part of Dubai’s effort to bring real estate onto blockchain infrastructure.

The development of secondary-market infrastructure is another part of that progression. PRYPCO Mint has enabled secondary trading of fractionalized real-estate interests, adding a market layer beyond initial issuance.

These are separate initiatives from the VARA–Securitize agreement, but together they illustrate the broader development of Dubai’s tokenization stack: issuance, regulatory oversight, distribution and secondary-market activity are increasingly emerging as connected parts of a tokenized-asset market.

That development follows VARA’s work to establish clearer requirements for virtual-asset issuance, providing the regulatory layer around which these markets can develop.

The next challenge is making tokenized markets work

The transition from tokenizing an asset to operating a tokenized market is significant.

A token can be created on a blockchain, but a functioning regulated market requires compliant issuance, reliable ownership records, investor access, distribution channels, trading venues, custody arrangements and settlement processes.

That is where the VARA–Securitize relationship becomes relevant.

The MoU gives VARA a framework for engaging with a company that has experience in institutional tokenization, while giving Securitize a channel for deeper engagement with a regulator actively developing Dubai’s virtual-asset market.

The agreement’s reference to projects initiated or facilitated by VARA is particularly notable, although any future initiative would still need to comply with applicable regulatory requirements and obtain any necessary approvals or licenses.

Is Dubai moving from regulating tokenization to building around it?

The evolution of tokenized markets increasingly raises a question beyond whether an asset can be put onchain.

The more difficult question is whether the surrounding infrastructure exists for that asset to function as part of a regulated financial market.

Dubai has already invested heavily in the regulatory side of that equation. VARA’s framework provides the rules, while projects across real estate and other markets are testing practical applications.

The VARA–Securitize MoU adds another layer by bringing an institutional tokenization platform into a broader framework for exploring projects, infrastructure and ecosystem development.

It does not establish Securitize as VARA’s infrastructure provider or replace Dubai’s existing regulatory framework. Instead, it suggests that the next stage of Dubai’s tokenization strategy may be operational rather than purely regulatory: building the institutional market infrastructure through which regulated tokenized assets can be issued, distributed, traded, held and settled at scale.

That raises a broader question for Dubai’s digital-asset strategy: is the emirate moving from regulating tokenization to building the institutional market infrastructure around it?