MENA Regulatory Radar is a dated, citable changelog of crypto and virtual-asset regulation across the Middle East and North Africa. Every Friday we check ten regulators in the same order, record what changed, and link the primary source for each line. No commentary, no scoring here — the scores live in the MENA Crypto Regulation Index; the country-by-country licensing detail lives in the Global Crypto Licensing Tracker.
Bookmark this page. It is the standing URL. Each weekly edition is a separate dated post listed in the edition archive; this page always shows the most recent changes.
Changes since last week
Week ending Thursday 3 September 2026 · checked 3 September 2026. Edition 1 publishes Friday 4 September 2026.
| Regulator | Change this week | Date | Primary source |
|---|---|---|---|
| VARA (Dubai) | No new rulebook, circular or licence announcement found this week. Last item on the regulator’s news page: 12 June 2026. | — | vara.ae news |
| UAE CMA, formerly SCA (federal) | No new virtual-asset item this week. The regulator now operates as the UAE Capital Market Authority; its Virtual Assets Framework dates from 13 April 2026. | — | uaecma.gov.ae |
| ADGM FSRA (Abu Dhabi) | No new item this week. Most recent virtual-asset items: Coinbase tokenisation hub granted Financial Services Permission (11 Aug); FSRA–GCGRA memorandum of understanding (14 Aug). | 11 Aug · 14 Aug | adgm.com announcements |
| DFSA (DIFC, Dubai) | No new item since 10 August 2026. | — | dfsa.ae news |
| CBB (Bahrain) | Not verified this week — the regulator’s site refused automated access. Will be checked by hand on Friday. | — | cbb.gov.bh media centre |
| CMA (Saudi Arabia) | No crypto or digital-asset item. Only non-crypto releases since 20 August (chairman appointment 16 Aug; Gulf Smart Investor Award 30 Aug). | — | cma.gov.sa press |
| QFCRA (Qatar) | No new item this week. Last news item on the regulator’s site: 23 April 2026. Cryptocurrencies and stablecoins remain “excluded tokens” under the QFC Digital Assets Framework. | — | qfcra.com news |
| CMA (Oman) | Not verified this week — the regulator’s site did not respond to automated access. Will be checked by hand on Friday. | — | cma.gov.om |
| FRA (Egypt) | Not checked this week. | — | fra.gov.eg |
| JSC (Jordan) | Not checked this week. | — | jsc.gov.jo |
“No change” means nothing new was found on the regulator’s official news or publications page for that week. “Not verified” means we could not reach the page and will not guess. We never report a change without a primary-source link.
How the Radar works
Ten regulators, one fixed order, once a week. Each Friday morning the week’s official announcements are collected and cited; a human reviews every line before it is published, and decides whether a change moves a country’s score in the index. Only primary sources count: the regulator’s own website, gazette, rulebook or press release. Press coverage, exchange blog posts and social media are never used as a source of a “change”.
Regulators we watch, in this order
| # | Regulator | Jurisdiction | Where we look |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VARA — Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority | Dubai (onshore, excluding DIFC) | News and media |
| 2 | UAE Capital Market Authority (formerly SCA) | UAE federal | uaecma.gov.ae |
| 3 | FSRA — Financial Services Regulatory Authority | ADGM, Abu Dhabi | Announcements |
| 4 | DFSA — Dubai Financial Services Authority | DIFC, Dubai | News |
| 5 | CBB — Central Bank of Bahrain | Bahrain | Media centre |
| 6 | CMA — Capital Market Authority | Saudi Arabia | Press releases |
| 7 | QFCRA — QFC Regulatory Authority | Qatar | News and media |
| 8 | CMA — Capital Market Authority | Oman | cma.gov.om |
| 9 | FRA — Financial Regulatory Authority | Egypt | fra.gov.eg |
| 10 | JSC — Jordan Securities Commission | Jordan | jsc.gov.jo |
Weekly editions
Every edition is titled MENA Regulatory Radar — week of [date] and lists at most three changes, each with its primary source. Browse them all in the edition archive or follow the site RSS feed.
Cite this data
Free to cite. The MENA Regulatory Radar is an original Cryptonite dataset compiled weekly from primary regulator sources. Journalists, analysts and researchers may quote it with attribution: “Source: Cryptonite MENA Regulatory Radar, cryptonite.ae/mena-regulatory-radar/”. For the underlying country scores see the MENA Crypto Regulation Index; for licensing detail see the Global Crypto Licensing Tracker. Corrections: contact us.
Related coverage
Latest reporting behind this changelog, updated automatically as new stories publish.