Deribit receives broker-dealer licence from Dubai regulator VARA

Deribit, which is part of Coinbase, has received a broker-dealer licence from the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in Dubai. With this permit, spot orders from Deribit clients can now be executed directly via Coinbase Exchange, providing greater liquidity and access to hundreds of additional tokens.

In short:

• VARA in Dubai grants Deribit a broker-dealer licence
• Spot orders are now routed to Coinbase Exchange for execution
• Acquired tokens can, after approval, serve as collateral for derivatives trading

What the licence enables

Deribit has been offering spot trading since January 2025, based on an earlier VARA Exchange Services licence. The new broker-dealer licence takes this a significant step further. Spot orders for buying, selling and trading are now routed directly to Coinbase Exchange, one of the largest centralised order books in the crypto sector.

In practice, this means tighter spreads, better order execution and access to the full range of tokens available on Coinbase Exchange. That is hundreds more than Deribit previously offered itself, Coinbase reports in a blog post about the licence.

Implications for derivatives trading

A notable element of the new arrangement is that tokens acquired via the revamped spot platform can, after regulatory approval, be used as collateral for derivatives positions on Deribit. This significantly increases the number of possible trading strategies on the platform.

Previously, Coinbase had also worked on the infrastructure behind Deribit. For instance, Coinbase launched a new matching engine for Deribit capable of processing up to 100,000 orders per second. The broker-dealer licence effectively builds on that and further strengthens the integration between the two platforms.