Tether and Circle, issuers of the world’s two largest stablecoins, have just received major regulatory green lights in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Tether’s stablecoin recognized as ARFT, while Circle obtains FSP license
Major developments related to the cryptocurrency sector occurred this week in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with Tether and Circle both gaining approval from the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the international financial center and free economic zone in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
First, as Tether announced in a press release, USDT issued on a number of blockchains has been recognized as an Accepted Fiat Reference Token (ARFT) in the ADGM. USDT already received approval from ADGM last year, but the previous recognition only included Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche versions. With the new regulatory green light, USDT available on Aptos, Celo, Cosmos, Kaia, Near, Polkadot, Tezos, TON and TRON also entered the market.
“By expanding recognition of USD₮ across several major blockchains, ADGM further strengthens Abu Dhabi’s position as a global hub for compliant digital finance,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether.
USDT being considered an ARFT means that authorized persons licensed by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) can offer regulated activities involving the stablecoin on almost all of its native blockchains. “The introduction of USD₮ as part of ADGM’s regulated digital assets reinforces the role of stablecoins as essential components of today’s financial landscape,” noted Ardoino.
Meanwhile, Circle, the issuer of USDC, has also moved forward in the region with a new license from the FSRA, according to a statement. The license, called Financial Services Permission (FSP), allows the company to operate as a money services provider within ADGM.
Arvind Ramamurthy, Director, Market Development, ADGM, said:
Circle’s regulated presence within ADGM reinforces our ambition to create a trusted, institutional-grade digital asset ecosystem in Abu Dhabi, one that builds market confidence, supports real-world use cases and cements the UAE’s role as a leading hub for regulated digital finance.
The ADGM green light follows the recognition of Circle’s USD and EUR stablecoins by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) in February this year. The move made USDC and EURC the first stablecoins to be approved at the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC).
The new FSP license means that “Circle is able to expand regulated payment and settlement use cases in the UAE for businesses, developers and financial institutions,” the statement said.
Stablecoins have seen rapid growth throughout 2025, setting several records. The near-steady growth of these tokens took a pause in October, however, as the combined market capitalization on this side of the cryptocurrency sector reversed course.
The trend in the market cap of the stablecoins | Source: DefiLlama
As the chart above from DefiLlama shows, the stablecoin’s market capitalization fell to a low in mid-November. Since this low point, however, capital inflows have resumed for these fiat-linked assets, with market capitalization once again approaching a new record high.
Bitcoin Price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $90,100, up almost 4% over the past seven days.
Looks like the price of the coin has moved sideways over the last few days | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView
Featured image of Dall-E, DefiLlama.com, chart by TradingView.com
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