Kraken announced on Thursday that it was making a comeback in the UAE market after having cleared regulatory approvals from Dubai’s crypto authority, VARA. This license will allow Kraken to offer Dirham (AED)-backed crypto trading services in Dubai, said the exchange’s parent company Payward announcing the development.
Dubai’s investor community will get access to Kraken’s international orderbooks. The exchange claims it maintains deep liquidity and execution reliability across regions like Europe, the U.S., and Asia-Pacific.
UAE-based Kraken users will now be allowed to fund their crypto purchases directly via the AED and will also be able to make withdrawals in AED.
Elaborating on its UAE expansion, Kraken’s co-CEO Arjun Sethi said Dubai’s regulatory clarity around digital assets has made it a hotspot for institutional capital.
“Dubai wrote a rulebook for crypto before most jurisdictions even acknowledged the asset class. That clarity is why real liquidity now sits in the UAE,” said Sethi. “Operating under VARA puts Kraken inside that perimeter, serving clients through a local, supervised entity rather than from offshore.”
Kraken claims that it is presently operational in over 190 countries, catering to over 15 million clients.
Back in 2022, the exchange had launched crypto services in the UAE after having secured approvals from the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), which is an international financial centre governed by UAE’s crypto-friendly Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA).
At the time, Kraken had introduced direct AED-supported trading pairs. However, the exchange pulled out of the UAE market in early 2023 amid a global restructuring effort and a bear crypto market. As per reports from Februaru 2023, Kraken had shut down its Abu Dhabi office and laid-off its team there.
Kraken’s platform has been somewhat accessible to the UAE-based investors who could have only engaged with buying and selling crypto in USD or EUR. The option to use Dirham on the platform for trading activities was shut.
This VARA approval brings Kraken into the local UAE market again after nearly three years. The platform plans to load up its dirham funding and local liquidity under VARA’s oversight.
According to Sethi, “Clients in the UAE get the same order book, the same balance sheet, and the same multi-asset coverage we run in every other market. The difference is the rulebook is written down and the supervisor is local.”
The platfirm plans to bring its derivatives and lending services along with new investment products for qualified clients in the UAE.
While on one side the company is making strides in international business expansion, Payward has axed five percent of its workforce in a fresh round of layoffs.
Earlier in May, it reported a revenue of $507 million for the first quarter of 2026 clocking a three percent quarterly hike. Later this year, Kraken is reportedly working on going public as well.
