Dubai: Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) announced regulatory guidelines on marketing, advertising and promotions of virtual assets across the emirate on Thursday.
The guidelines cover all forms of outreach, communications and advertising, including publication of information, awareness building, customer engagement, and/or investor solicitation, it said in a statement.
The rules cover all virtual asset-related communications by any entity leveraging Dubai-based media sites, search platforms, and online or off-line publishing channels that explicitly target customers within the Dubai market.
The guidelines also require all Dubai licenced virtual asset service providers, including advertising platforms, to ensure factual accuracy, explicitly demonstrate any promotional intent, and in no way mislead on the guaranteed nature of their returns.
Established in March 2022, VARA is the world’s only independent regulator for virtual assets that is tasked to provide a progressive framework that can enable borderless economic opportunity, without compromising market security, across the global virtual assets industry.
“These regulations specifically address marketing and communications activities, ahead of operationalising the MVP licensees so that any mass-market information dissemination, and consumer solicitation are designed to safeguard community interests,” the statement said.
VARA is responsible for licencing and regulating the virtual asset sector in the emirate of Dubai and its free zone territories (excluding DIFC), and oversees all licencing requirements and applications for authorisation of virtual asset activities under UAE law.
