Dubai's VARA granted Flowdesk a full broker-dealer license. The approval, which follows an in-principle nod in June, lets the market maker serve institutional clients through a single regulated counterparty.
Crypto market maker Flowdesk has secured a full broker-dealer license in Dubai, allowing the firm to provide regulated virtual asset services to qualified and institutional investors as it expands across major financial centers.
Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority granted the license to Flowdesk Omega FZE, the company’s local entity. VARA’s public register lists the license as active and authorizes Flowdesk to conduct broker-dealer services in and from Dubai.
The approval completes a process that began with an in-principle authorization in June. That earlier approval allowed Flowdesk to prepare its operations but did not permit regulated virtual asset activities until the remaining licensing requirements had been completed.
Flowdesk specializes in liquidity provision and over-the-counter trading for institutional investors, exchanges and digital asset issuers. Founded in 2020, the company has expanded from Europe into several major crypto trading centers.
Its backers have included Coinbase Ventures, while funds and accounts managed by BlackRock provided debt financing as part of a $102 million financing package completed in 2025. The funding was intended partly to support international expansion and the development of Flowdesk’s institutional trading infrastructure, including OTC derivatives and credit businesses.
Broker-dealer authorization gives Flowdesk a regulated structure for acting as an intermediary between institutional clients and fragmented digital asset markets. Rather than requiring investors to maintain direct relationships with multiple exchanges and liquidity venues, a broker-dealer can source liquidity, quote prices and execute transactions through a single regulated counterparty.
That model is becoming more relevant as institutional investors demand more than competitive pricing. Asset managers, hedge funds and financial institutions also need to know which legal entity handles a transaction, who regulates it, how assets are settled and what protections apply if a counterparty fails.
For Flowdesk, broker-dealer activity complements its market-making business. The company already provides liquidity across centralized and decentralized markets while offering OTC execution for clients trading larger positions outside public exchange order books.
Dubai has developed a dedicated virtual asset licensing regime through VARA, which oversees crypto companies operating in or from the emirate outside the Dubai International Financial Centre. The regulator currently lists more than 50 fully licensed virtual asset service providers covering exchanges, custody, lending, investment management and broker-dealer activities.
Flowdesk’s Dubai license is more than permission to open another regional operation. It gives the market maker a regulated intermediary structure that could make its liquidity services easier for institutions to use as crypto trading moves closer to traditional financial market infrastructure.
The Dubai authorization follows another major regulatory approval in Europe. Flowdesk Europe received authorization from France’s Financial Markets Authority in June as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation.
Its MiCA authorization allows the company to provide regulated crypto services across the European Union through the framework’s passporting system. Combined with Dubai, Flowdesk now has regulated operations spanning two regions competing for institutional digital asset activity.
The approach also reflects a wider change in crypto market making. Firms that once focused primarily on connecting to exchanges and running trading algorithms are increasingly building regulated entities capable of serving professional investors under rules familiar to traditional finance.
Wintermute recently registered its U.S. business as a broker-dealer, with plans initially focused on markets connected to digital assets, including crypto-related exchange-traded funds and commodities. Its U.S. business could eventually move into tokenized equities if regulation permits wider trading of blockchain-based securities.
Traditional financial infrastructure providers are moving toward digital assets as well. BitGo and OTC Markets Group announced plans in July to develop trading and custody infrastructure for more than 150 registered broker-dealers using OTC Link ATS, with BitGo providing custody and settlement services.
The developments point toward a market where crypto liquidity is increasingly delivered through structures already familiar to institutional finance rather than through offshore exchanges alone.
Crypto liquidity remains distributed across centralized exchanges, OTC desks, decentralized markets and multiple blockchain networks. Institutional clients may not want the operational burden of maintaining balances, technical connections and compliance relationships across every venue. A regulated intermediary can aggregate those sources and offer clients a simpler access point.
That could eventually reduce the practical distinction between crypto-native market makers and traditional financial intermediaries. An institutional trading desk may increasingly be able to access bitcoin, tokenized securities and conventional assets through similar execution, custody and compliance systems.
The strategy carries costs. Regulatory approvals require compliance teams, local operations and capital, while a license does not guarantee enough institutional trading activity to make the investment profitable. Dubai is also becoming more competitive as exchanges, liquidity providers and financial companies expand there.
Flowdesk will therefore still need to compete on execution quality, pricing and access to liquidity. For institutional clients, regulation is increasingly becoming a prerequisite rather than an optional advantage. Flowdesk’s approvals in Europe and Dubai give it the infrastructure to compete in a market where the strongest liquidity provider may also need the regulatory footprint institutions require before sending meaningful trading flow.
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