Stablecoin transaction volumes in the Middle East now exceed Visa and Mastercard combined
Emirates NBD, which is the second-largest bank in the UAE, has already opened its investment structure to Bitcoin with a small allocation from its investment portfolio. The bank also sees Bitcoin as a store of value and said it identifies tokenization as a critical financial change. The move is an indication of an increasing regional interest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
Emirates NBD Bank Considers Minor Bitcoin Allocation
In an interview with CNBC, Maurice Gravier, who is the Group CIO of Emirates NBD, affirmed that the bank has yet to buy Bitcoin. However, it has facilitated the asset in its internal investment process. It is in the process of evaluating the valuation models, macro factor and behavioral before taking any position.
According to the executive, the bank will have an initial allocation ranging between 0.5% to 1% in “balanced” portfolios. He outlined Bitcoin as digital gold because it has a limited supply, a proof-of-work framework for strong security against hacks, and has low inflation characteristics.
However, volatility and correlation with the wider risk markets are still issues of concern. The bank reported that these aspects of Bitcoin need careful adjustment prior to capital allocation.
The institution further indicated that it is only focused on Bitcoin and not other layer-one networks. It claimed that the single application of Bitcoin as a monetary instrument was why it is less prone to disruption than a smart contract platform such as Ethereum.
Meanwhile, a UAE-based investment firm, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala, has already made an investment in Bitcoin using exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Recently, Mubadala increased its holdings in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) by 46% and now owns 12.7 million shares.
This amount was valued at over $630 million as of December 31, 2025. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan also indicated that Harvard University has more funds allocated to Bitcoin than to gold.
Tokenization Is a Huge Disruption in Finance
The next big revolution in finance, identified by the Emirates NBD executive, was tokenization. According to him, tokenized assets have the potential to offer price transparency, peer-to-peer trade, and zero middleman expenses.
The bank anticipates that tokenization will soon be used in private markets and conventional securities. This would facilitate discoverable pricing and continuous liquidity for previously illiquid assets.
Gravier also said that remittances and cross-border trade are the reasons for the fast adoption of stablecoin in the Middle East. He claimed that the volume of transactions for dollar-pegged stablecoins is bigger than large card networks like Visa and Mastercard. With Emirates NBD serving a large number of expatriates as clients, it regards stablecoins as very important for payment rails and not a mere trend.
According to CoinGape, the recent trend in the market seems to be another initiative by Asia regarding tokenization. As a case in point, the Japanese financial group and Ripple partner, SBI Holdings, has introduced tokenized bonds to provide investors with rewards in XRP cryptocurrency payments.
In addition, the Monetary Authority in Singapore is making progress regarding Project Guardian. This employs a risk-tiered approach to get banks and asset managers to test tokenized funds.
