The Central Bank of the UAE has issued a no-objection certificate clearing the DDSC stablecoin for listing on exchanges regulated by Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), moving the dirham-pegged token out of closed institutional pilots and into public retail channels for the first time. The clearance, confirmed in early July, is one of the most consequential steps yet in the UAE’s effort to build a regulated, local-currency alternative to the dollar-denominated stablecoins that dominate Gulf trading volumes.
What the Central Bank clearance covers
The no-objection certificate allows VARA-licensed exchange platforms to host and trade DDSC, effectively bridging two regulatory perimeters: the Central Bank of the UAE, which supervises payment tokens under its Payment Token Services Regulation, and VARA, which licenses virtual asset service providers in Dubai. Until now, DDSC had operated inside a private corporate network, where an institutional trial processed more than AED 150 million (roughly $40 million) in transactions to test the token’s stability and settlement capacity, as reported by The National.
Who is behind the DDSC stablecoin
DDSC was developed through a collaboration between International Holding Company (IHC), First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Sirius International Holding — three of Abu Dhabi’s most systemically significant institutions. The token is pegged one-to-one to the UAE dirham and runs on the ADI blockchain. That backing matters: unlike offshore stablecoin issuers, DDSC’s sponsors sit at the centre of the UAE’s banking and sovereign-linked corporate ecosystem, which gives the project a direct line to reserves management, auditability and domestic payment rails.
A local answer to dollar stablecoin dominance
Stablecoin settlement in the Middle East is overwhelmingly dollar-based, with USDT and USDC serving as the de facto trading pairs across regional exchanges. A regulated dirham token gives UAE institutions and consumers an on-chain instrument that matches their functional currency, removing FX friction from local settlement and keeping monetary activity within the CBUAE’s regulatory sight lines. It also complements — rather than replaces — the Digital Dirham, the central bank digital currency the CBUAE continues to develop, by covering the commercially issued layer of the tokenized dirham economy. For a primer on how these instruments differ, see our guide to how stablecoins work.
Why the timing matters for Dubai’s exchanges
The clearance lands as VARA’s licensing regime hits critical mass. The regulator recently issued its 50th VASP licence, and global platforms continue to queue for market access — most recently Revolut, which secured in-principle approval from VARA this month. Every newly licensed venue is a potential DDSC listing partner, and a dirham-denominated settlement asset gives those venues something no offshore competitor can easily replicate: fully onshore, regulator-sanctioned local-currency liquidity.
What it means
The DDSC retail clearance is best read as infrastructure policy, not product news. The UAE is methodically assembling a full-stack tokenized money system — CBDC at the sovereign layer, a bank-and-conglomerate-backed stablecoin at the commercial layer, and VARA-licensed venues at the distribution layer. For institutional readers, the signal is that dirham-denominated on-chain settlement is moving from concept to consumer reach, and that the CBUAE is willing to let regulated private issuers carry that adoption. The open questions are practical ones: which VARA exchanges list DDSC first, how deep dirham pairs become relative to dollar pairs, and whether merchant payment use cases follow trading adoption. None of this constitutes investment advice; the relevant regulatory frameworks are still maturing.
FAQ
What is the DDSC stablecoin?
DDSC is a UAE dirham-pegged stablecoin developed by IHC, First Abu Dhabi Bank and Sirius International Holding, issued on the ADI blockchain and regulated under the Central Bank of the UAE’s payment token framework.
Can retail users in the UAE now buy DDSC?
The Central Bank’s no-objection certificate allows VARA-regulated exchanges to list DDSC, opening the path to retail access. Availability depends on individual exchanges completing listings under their VARA licences.
