Main Takeaways

  • New research released by The Blockchain Center Abu Dhabi finds that the UAE is moving from blockchain experimentation to regulated, large-scale deployment across finance, governance, and public-sector efficiency.

  • The report highlights how the UAE’s layered regulatory framework is enabling institutional adoption across payments, tokenization, custody, and market infrastructure, positioning blockchain as part of the country’s economic operating layer.

  • The Blockchain Center Abu Dhabi has collaborated with Binance as a co-author, recognizing Binance’s role in building institutional-grade digital asset infrastructure within the UAE’s regulated environment.

The UAE’s blockchain story is increasingly defined by execution rather than experimentation. A new flagship research report released by The Blockchain Center Abu Dhabi highlights the country’s transition toward regulated, large-scale blockchain deployment across finance, governance, and public-sector efficiency. At the center of that shift is layered regulatory design which has created the conditions for institutions to move beyond pilots and begin integrating blockchain into payments, tokenization, custody, and market infrastructure.

As part of this initiative, The Blockchain Center Abu Dhabi has collaborated with Binance as a co-author, recognizing Binance’s evolution from a global crypto exchange to a core provider of institutional-grade digital asset infrastructure globally and within the UAE’s regulatory environment.

From Experimentation to Execution at National Scale

The report highlights that the UAE has moved into an execution phase defined by scale, regulatory clarity, and institutional adoption. Domestic payment systems processed over AED 20 trillion in transfers in the first ten months of 2025, while the UAE continues to rank among the world’s largest remittance-origin countries.

The report also cites a set of behavioral and market indicators that shape demand for modern settlement rails, including that 95% of UAE residents send international remittances at least once per year, more than 71% of UAE e-commerce payments are completed using cards or mobile wallets, and cross-border flows supported by the UAE economy exceed $40 billion annually. Against this backdrop, blockchain use cases are increasingly acknowledged as tools that can improve settlement speed, transparency, and operational efficiency when deployed responsibly.

A Shift Toward Institutional Market Structure

The core theme revolves around structural shift in the UAE’s blockchain ecosystem. It has evolved from early-stage startups to a dense, institutional landscape spanning regulated exchanges and custodians, payment providers, tokenization platforms, infrastructure vendors, enterprise solution providers, banks, and multinational technology firms.

Commenting on the findings, Abdulla Al Dhaheri, CEO of The Blockchain Center Abu Dhabi, said: “The UAE has created an environment where regulators, financial institutions, and technology providers can work together to deploy blockchain in a controlled and meaningful way. The result is an ecosystem focused on real use cases, regulatory clarity, and long-term financial infrastructure.”

He added that the report captures the transition from experimentation to supervised deployment, showing how global platforms such as Binance are increasingly participating within locally regulated market structures rather than operating on the periphery.

Blockchain as Economic Infrastructure

The report positions blockchain as national economic infrastructure, comparing its trajectory to other foundational technologies that reshaped economies. It highlights regulated deployments across real-world asset tokenization, stablecoins and AED-backed tokenized deposits, payments and wholesale settlement platforms, and blockchain-powered trade, logistics, and government services.

Digital public infrastructure is also scaling in parallel. The UAE Pass serves 11 million users and has processed over 2.5 billion authentications, reflecting the scale of digital identity usage across the country. This further points to the role of sovereign and quasi-sovereign capital – with more than $2.5 trillion in assets under management – in supporting and scaling compliant blockchain initiatives.

Binance Within the UAE’s Institutional Blockchain Framework

The UAE’s emphasis on regulated, large-scale digital asset infrastructure is reflected by choosing Binance to operate locally as an ADGM FSRA-regulated entity. MGX’s $2 billion investment into Binance in 2025, executed using regulated stablecoin infrastructure, is another signal of the UAE’s commitment to production-grade digital finance and its growing credibility as a hub for globally scaled platforms.

Tarik Erk, Regional Head for MENAT and Senior Executive Officer, Abu Dhabi at Binance, said: “What distinguishes the UAE is not just innovation, but execution within a regulated, institutional-grade framework. This research reflects how blockchain is now being deployed across payments, tokenization, custody, and market infrastructure as part of the country’s core economic systems. Binance’s participation in this initiative reflects our long-term commitment to operating within these structures and supporting the UAE’s vision for secure, scalable, and compliant blockchain infrastructure that serves real economic use cases.”

Final Thoughts

This report presents the UAE as a global benchmark for moving blockchain from promise to production, showing what becomes possible when regulation, capital, and ecosystem coordination reinforce each other. The shift to real deployments becomes practical when there’s a market structure that has clear rules, credible supervision, and institutional participation that make blockchain systems dependable enough to support real economic activity at national scale, and relevant enough to compete globally.

At Binance, our focus is to support this next phase in practice through regulated operations, institutional-grade infrastructure, and ecosystem partnerships that help blockchain move from pilots to services people and institutions can rely on.

Further Reading

  • KGST and the Next Step for Digital Money in Central Asia

  • Bank of Bahrain And Kuwait and Binance Bahrain Pave The Way for a CaaS Integration With Landmark MOU

  • Binance at Goals House Davos 2026 – Blockchain Use Cases for Financial Inclusion