A UAE-born digital asset firm operating under Abu Dhabi’s financial regulatory umbrella has moved to broaden how clients move stablecoins across global blockchain networks, adding multi-chain settlement capabilities to its existing infrastructure and strengthening what it describes as a fully regulated bridge between the international crypto market and the UAE’s local banking system.
BurjX, licensed by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority, the FSRA, of Abu Dhabi Global Market, known as ADGM, announced the expansion on April 21. The upgrade allows clients to route stablecoin transfers across four additional blockchain networks beyond the Ethereum-based infrastructure the platform already operated.
For a brokerage and custodian trying to serve institutional clients, OTC desks and retail users under a single regulated roof, the ability to pick and choose networks based on speed, cost and liquidity is a meaningful practical improvement.
The expansion lands at an interesting moment for the broader stablecoin market. Global stablecoin transaction volume hit more than $33 trillion in 2025 alone, and total market capitalization has since crossed $300 billion.
The global stablecoin market saw 49 percent growth in 2025, rising from around $205 billion at the start of January to well above that figure by year’s end. The UAE has been moving deliberately to position itself at the center of this growth, building one of the more comprehensive digital asset regulatory architectures anywhere in the world.
What BurjX is actually adding
The platform’s updated stablecoin infrastructure now covers four networks in addition to Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard. USDT on Tron’s TRC20 network, which accounts for over 60 percent of circulating USDT supply globally and remains the dominant rail for stablecoin transfers in emerging markets, is now supported.
So is USDT on BNB Smart Chain, tapping into one of the largest decentralized finance and trading ecosystems operating today. On the USDC side, BurjX has added support for Solana, which offers high throughput and low settlement costs suited to institutional flow, and Stellar, a network specifically designed for cross-border payment corridors and enterprise-grade transfers.
Together, these additions give clients the ability to match network selection to transaction requirements, faster settlement on Solana, lower fees on Tron, compatibility with DeFi on BNB Chain, or cross-border optimization on Stellar, while keeping everything within the compliance framework set by the FSRA.
The custody side of the operation runs through Fireblocks, the enterprise digital asset platform used by a broad range of regulated financial institutions globally. Fireblocks uses what’s known as MPC technology, multi-party computation, a cryptographic approach that splits the authorization of transactions across multiple parties and eliminates the kind of single point of failure that has led to losses at other platforms. Clients’ assets are never held in a single key or a single location, which is an increasingly standard requirement for institutional-grade custody.
The platform’s fiat connection runs through Zand Bank, allowing clients to move in and out of AED, the UAE dirham, directly, without having to pass through a separate banking layer. That kind of integrated fiat rail matters particularly for institutional participants managing treasury operations across multiple currencies and jurisdictions.
The regulatory context
BurjX is operating in a jurisdiction that has spent several years building a serious regulatory foundation for digital assets rather than simply issuing guidance and hoping for the best. ADGM’s FSRA finalized its stablecoin rulebook effective January 1, 2026, establishing a comprehensive and enforceable framework for fiat-referenced tokens, stablecoins backed by fiat currencies, covering not just issuance but custody, intermediation and usage in regulated activities.
That matters because it means BurjX’s stablecoin operations are not occupying a gray area. The network connectivity it just added is being built on a regulatory foundation that explicitly governs how stablecoins can move within ADGM-licensed entities.
ADGM’s approach is deliberately conservative, permitting only fully 1:1 fiat-backed tokens, prohibiting algorithmic stablecoins and privacy tokens, in an effort to offer maximum institutional certainty rather than maximum flexibility.
That approach appears to be attracting capital. PwC data shows that in the year ending June 2024, the UAE received $30 billion in digital assets, making it the third-largest digital asset destination in the MENA region. The pace of institutional engagement has only grown since.
BurjX itself was built to bring experience from more established markets into the Gulf. Omar Abbas, the co-founder and CEO, previously co-founded NDAX, Canada’s leading crypto exchange.
His co-founder Adam Ferris brings a Harvard law and business background and prior experience at Goldman Sachs. The firm secured its FSRA license in July 2025 and launched a platform supporting over 100 digital assets. The multi-chain stablecoin expansion is the latest layer added to that offering.
“Stablecoins have become the backbone of digital asset settlement,” Abbas said in the announcement. “By expanding support across these networks, BurjX is building the infrastructure that allows capital to move seamlessly across blockchain ecosystems while remaining fully aligned with the regulatory framework established by the FSRA.”
The UAE’s stablecoin ecosystem is developing fast enough that it is now starting to influence the global conversation. In January, the UAE Central Bank approved the country’s first USD-backed stablecoin under its Payment Token Services Regulation, with reserves held 1:1 in accounts at Emirates NBD and Mashreq, a move that put the country ahead of the US, EU and most of Asia in terms of operationalizing a stablecoin under a central bank payments regime.
BurjX’s expansion fits into this broader push. The platform is building the plumbing that allows existing dollar-denominated stablecoins to move efficiently within a regulated framework, with AED banking rails on one end and global blockchain networks on the other. In a market where institutional participants are increasingly asking for compliant, auditable settlement infrastructure rather than offshore workarounds, that’s a credible positioning.
The bigger question is how much of the global stablecoin flow eventually routes through regulated venues like BurjX, and how quickly. That depends in part on how regulatory environments elsewhere evolve, particularly in the US, where the Genius Act has brought dollar stablecoins into a regulated framework but hasn’t yet produced the international coordination that institutions operating across borders actually need.