Henson Orser, a Nomura veteran who spent two years as president of Komainu, a Japanese bank’s cryptocurrency project, now heads Dubai’s dedicated cryptocurrency regulator.
The so-called Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) was established in March 2022 and is responsible for licensing crypto operators and regulating the sector in the Emirate of Dubai.
Orser will become the organization’s first CEO after taking office on January 3. wider push To establish Dubai as a hub for crypto and metaverse operators.
“This is the first purely crypto-asset regulator,” he told The Block, stating that VARA aims to provide a framework that is “passportable to gold standards, Tier 1s and even other jurisdictions.” He added that it aims to comply with the published guidance on crypto regulation, as well as to comply with it. According to the Financial Action Task Force.
Most jurisdictions, including the US, UK, Switzerland and Singapore, are moving to regulate the cryptocurrency sector through their existing institutions. VARA is unusual in that it was created specifically to oversee cryptocurrency companies.
Since September 2020, Orser has been president of Komainu, a cryptocurrency custodian founded as a joint venture between Nomura, CoinShares and Ledger for nearly two years. Prior to that, he held senior positions at Nomura for approximately six years, including Head of Global Market Sales for the Americas and Head of Wholesale He was Global Head of SRM.
VARA is currently working towards the start of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) phase. This means that licensed cryptocurrency businesses may not yet offer regulated services in this region. Once the MVP phase is operational, licensed companies will be able to start offering regulated products, according to VARA’s website.
Late last year, VARA issued provisional licenses to Binance, Komainu and Hex Trust.it also had accept MVP license to a subsidiary of FTX, a failed cryptocurrency exchange run by Sam Bankman-Fried. That license was revoked in November.
Orser told The Block that the final rulebook for the cryptocurrency company will be published on VARA’s website “in the coming weeks.”
Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, former CEO and majority owner of The Block, has received a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.
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