Dubai Financial Services Authority. Independent regulator for financial services conducted in or from the DIFC.
The DFSA (Dubai Financial Services Authority) is the independent regulator of financial and ancillary services conducted in or from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). It licenses banks, asset managers, exchanges, and tokenization activities that involve securities such as bonds, sukuk, shares and fund units. The DFSA runs the DIFC Tokenisation Regulatory Sandbox (opened March 2025) and the Innovation Testing Licence, and approved the first DIFC tokenized money market fund (QCDT) in July 2025.
Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, the world's first dedicated regulator for virtual asset service providers.
Dubai International Financial Centre, an independent common-law financial free zone with its own regulator (DFSA).
Asset-Referenced Virtual Asset. Dedicated VARA category for tokens representing ownership in real-world assets.
Real-World Asset. Any off-chain asset (real estate, funds, commodities, credit) represented on-chain via tokenization.