Bybit wins VARA approval for spot exchange services in Dubai

Dubai set up VARA in 2022 to license every type of crypto activity separately, splitting spot trading, custody and derivatives into distinct approvals rather than one blanket licence. Binance and OKX already hold the derivatives permission that lets them serve the emirate's active futures and options traders. Bybit's Dubai entity, Bybit Fintech FZE, had only a provisional nod for two years before this week's upgrade to an active VASP licence for spot exchange services.

The licence, registered under reference VL/26/10/003, lets Bybit Fintech FZE serve retail, qualified and institutional clients buying and selling crypto on the spot market inside Dubai. It does not cover margin, futures or options products, so traders wanting leveraged exposure through a locally regulated entity must still use Binance or OKX. Bybit itself says it must clear further regulatory steps before any local launch actually goes live.

Derivatives, not spot markets, generate the bulk of trading volume and revenue at exchanges like Bybit, so a licence that excludes them is a foothold rather than full market access. The gap also shows VARA treating product risk unevenly: an exchange can be trusted with simple buy-and-sell trades years before it earns approval for leveraged products. That sequencing is defensible as risk-based regulation, but it leaves Bybit competing in Dubai with one hand tied behind its core business.

Bybit has confirmed that derivatives approval is its next target with VARA, without naming a date for a decision. Until that permission arrives, Dubai's leveraged trading market stays effectively a two-player field between Binance and OKX. A derivatives licence for Bybit would reshape that competitive balance locally; continued delay would keep the emirate's most lucrative crypto segment closed to one of the industry's largest exchanges.