BitGo on Monday launched its instituional electronic trading service in the Middle East, signalling a prevailing sense of confidence in the market despite brewing geo-political tensions. The service will allow BitGo clients in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to tap automated large-scale digital asset trading through the platform, combining it with the platform’s already available over-the-counter trading options.
In conversation with The Coin Headlines, Nick Coombs, Managing Director of BitGo’s MENA region, emphasized that the UAE maintains its strong position as a long-term hub for digital assets despite the ongoing Israel-Iran tensions straining previously thriving markets in the region like the UAE real estate.
BitGo said, through its electronic trading service, it will open its MENA users to explore and compare better asset pricing across global crypto exchanges and liquidity providers.
Given the automated nature of this trading feature, BitGo said, it would have its MENA users maintain separate accounts for automated trading and overall asset storage. This will give the users more control over how much capital they would want getting routed into the market via automation while maintaining a healthy, untouched balance in their storage accounts.
“Client funds are held securely by a dedicated custody unit and carry insurance coverage up to $250 million,” the digital assets infrastructure firm said in its statement on Monday.
BitGo MENA secured its Broker-Dealer license from the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) last year in October. In the last few months, Bitgo said, it observed a growing demand from institutional investors for an expanded enterprise-grade market access which nudged it to launch this e-trading service in the region.
Nick Coombs on BitGo’s roadmap
The Coin Headlines: How does combining execution and custody into a single workflow reduce operational friction and counterparty risk for your clients?
Coombs: The integrated model is designed to streamline institutional access to digital asset markets. Clients can execute trades through BitGo MENA FZE while assets remain with BitGo MENA Custody FZE. This will eliminate the need for users to move assets across multiple exchanges, venues, or third parties, where most counterparty risk has historically existed.
BitGo MENA FZE and BitGo Custody MENA FZE are separate regulated entities with distinct roles and responsibilities. This deliberate structure provides clients with a regulated structure where execution and custody remain legally and operationally independent.
Our goal is to provide institutional clients with the confidence to participate in digital asset markets, supported by the controls and standards expected in a regulated environment.
The Coin Headlines: How did you notice that fragmented liquidity is currently a bottleneck for MENA institutions, and how does combining OTC with electronic execution fix that
Coombs: Regulated, institutional-grade market access to digital asset liquidity has historically been limited in the region.
Institutions have often had to piece together relationships across multiple venues, counterparties, and providers to access the liquidity they need. This fragmentation had created complexities in operations as well as risk considerations.
Our approach is to address that directly.
The electronic trading offering connects to more than 10 of the largest liquidity providers in the digital asset market, with a smart order router designed to route to the best available price across that pool. That gives clients access to deeper, aggregated liquidity through a single regulated platform.
The OTC trading service, meanwhile, supports larger, higher-touch transactions where clients may require bespoke execution support, price certainty, or a more tailored trading experience.
Together, the two execution methods give institutional clients greater flexibility in how they access liquidity, based on their trading objectives.
The Coin Headlines: What are your key observations around the MENA region’s digital asset adoption factorc
We’re seeing strong engagement from institutions that want to move beyond exploration and build long-term digital asset strategies. The MENA region continues to stand out as one of the fastest-growing institutional digital asset markets globally.
VARA’s clear VASP licensing framework have helped support the rapid growth of the institutional digital asset market and attract meaningful participation from global and regional firms.
Firms already operating in the UAE, as well as those progressing through VARA licensing processes, continue to view Dubai as a strategic base for regulated digital asset activity.\
Global footprint and market headwinds
At launch, BitGo electronic trading service would come with the support for 38 trading pairs across 21 unique tokens, excluding USD, USDC, and USDT.
Mainstream assets like BTC and ETH have been paired with a broader range of altcoins to give institutional clients a holistic market coverage from day one.
“The MENA has become one of the most exciting regions in the world for digital assets, with regulators, institutions, and innovators moving with real purpose,” said Mike Belshe, CEO and Co-founder of BitGo. “BitGo’s expansion in the region reflects our belief that the next phase of digital asset adoption will be built in markets with strong regulatory foundations and institutional ambition.”
Earlier in May, BitGo introduced a multi-layered defense system to its wallet security infrastructure to curb the possibilities of sophisticated cyberattacks that it claimed were on a rise in the Middle East region amid the ongoing Hormuz conflict.
Along with the Middle East, the company is also strenghtening its foothold in the U.S. market.
After securing the National Trust Bank Charter in the U.S. last year in December, BitGo completed a high-stakes debut on the NYSE raising $212.8 million and touching the valuation of $2.1 billion. When the company had filed for its IPO in the U.S. in July 2025, it had disclosed $100 billion worth of assets under management.
The company is embroiled in a legal battle with Galaxy, that has been ongoing since 2022. Galaxy was set to acquire BitGo at the time for $1.2 billion but pulled out eventually citing delayed financial audits by the latter. BitGo has long argued that the crypto market crash at the time was the reason Galaxy escaped the deal. Though a lower court initially dismissed BitGo’s lawsuit for a termination fee, the Delaware Supreme Court revived the case, that keeps the bitter dispute active.
Founded in 2013, BitGo recently relocated its headquarter from Palo Alto, California, U.S. to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, U.S. in January 2026.
