Coinbase and Deribit Expand Global Crypto Presence with New Licenses

Coinbase is expanding its global presence through new licenses, including a Dubai license from Deribit. Meanwhile, Coinbase has received a license in Abu Dhabi to launch an international tokenization hub. These developments support the growth of cryptocurrencies and related services.

Deribit, the derivatives exchange Coinbase COIN acquired in 2025, received a broker-dealer licence from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority on August 13, and will route most spot orders to Coinbase Exchange for execution . Some coverage attributed the licence to the Dubai Financial Services Authority and described it as a market maker permission. Both are wrong: VARA is Dubai's virtual assets regulator, the DFSA supervises the separate DIFC free zone, and what was granted is a broker-dealer licence. Deribit has held a VARA exchange services licence since January 2025 .

The ownership detail matters for reading the announcement. Coinbase bought Deribit for $2.9 billion in cash and stock, closing in August 2025 , so this is a subsidiary widening a licence that channels order flow back to the parent, not two independent firms striking a distribution deal.

Separately, Coinbase received a financial services permission from Abu Dhabi's Financial Services Regulatory Authority within ADGM on August 11, establishing an international tokenization hub with permissions to arrange deals in investments and provide custody for tokenized securities .

Together the two permissions extend Coinbase's regulated footprint across both major Gulf jurisdictions and are aimed at institutional flow rather than retail volume. What to watch is whether tokenized-securities activity materializes at any scale, since the Abu Dhabi permission is the more strategically novel of the two and currently carries no meaningful revenue attached to it.

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