Dubai : Crypto marketing rules released to better protect investors

Virtual asset regulators in Dubai are introducing additional marketing and advertising rules for the cryptocurrency industry.

VARA Dubai : To create an advanced legal framework

Dubai’s virtual asset regulator, the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA), unveiled on Aug. 25, marketing and promotional guidelines for digital assets, applicable to any entity using Dubai-based media sites and publishing channels.

Launched in early March, the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) aims to create an advanced legal framework to protect investors and devise well-founded international standards for the governance of the virtual asset (VA) industry that will promote responsible business growth.

According to the report, VARA’s guidelines encompass:

• All forms of outreach,
• Communication and publicity, including the publication of information, outreach, customer engagement and/or investor solicitation.
• All communications related to virtual assets and entities publishing information on Dubai-based media websites, search platforms, as well as online and offline publishing channels that target customers in the Dubai market.

The rules would also require all local virtual asset service providers (VASPs), including advertising platforms, to ensure factual accuracy and openly demonstrate any promotional intent to avoid misleading potential customers.

VARA would have noted:

The guidelines further detail the obligations of Dubai-licensed VASPs [virtual asset service providers] and all advertising platforms that position VA [virtual asset] content across traditional and new media channels for the Dubai market to ensure factual accuracy, explicitly demonstrate any promotional intent, and not mislead on the guaranteed nature of their returns.

Atul Hegde, the founder of YAAP, is quoted in the report, describing the decision as “boding well for Dubai’s ambitions to be among the world’s leading destinations for cryptos, blockchain and metaverse.”