An Overview of Cryptocurrencies in Terms of their Origin, Forms, and the Legal Framework Regulating them in the United Arab Emirates

Cryptocurrencies have emerged as a significant financial innovation, reshaping payment systems, investment practices, and regulatory approaches worldwide. In innovation-oriented jurisdictions such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), their expansion presents complex legal challenges related to classification, supervision, and financial integrity. Despite growing regulatory attention, existing scholarship remains fragmented and largely focused on technical or economic perspectives, with limited consolidated legal analysis of the UAE framework following Dubai’s Virtual Assets Law of 2022. This review paper aims to synthesise and critically analyse existing academic literature, international regulatory guidance, and UAE legal instruments concerning cryptocurrencies. Using a structured narrative review of authoritative sources, the paper identifies key regulatory themes and challenges. The findings indicate that the UAE adopts a risk-based, intermediary-focused regulatory model aligned with international standards. The paper contributes an integrated legal overview of cryptocurrency regulation in the UAE and outlines future research directions focusing on regulatory effectiveness, legal classification boundaries, and comparative analysis.