Announcing Fuze

Together, Dfns and Fuze offer a combined stack: secure wallet orchestration plus regulated market connectivity. This lets financial institutions across the UAE and MENA launch digital asset products with the controls, auditability, and reliability expected in modern finance.

Digital assets are moving from experimentation to real infrastructure. What was once limited to a few crypto-native companies is now a practical question for banks, brokers, payment providers, and fintechs.  Institutions require stablecoin flows, regulated trading, asset tokenization, and new settlement rails that must fit into existing operations. This changes the baseline requirements. 

Market connectivity alone is not enough. Security alone is not enough either. Like any mature financial system, institutions need two things: an internal control layer that governs how value moves, and an external connectivity layer that executes safely in regulated markets. Institutions demand solutions that enable the integration of digital assets safely, at scale and within regulatory guardrails. The future of financial infrastructure in the region must be compliant, programmable and institution-first.

Fuze connecting institutions to regulated crypto markets

Fuze is a UAE-based digital asset infrastructure company built for institutions that want to add digital assets to regulated financial products. It is not a retail exchange. Fuze acts as an enablement platform. It provides the infrastructure (APIs, execution, liquidity access, settlement, and stablecoin infrastructure) so banks, fintechs, and brokers can launch services without rebuilding the full stack themselves.

Fuze’s growth reflects what the Gulf market is asking for; less “crypto as a destination,” more “crypto embedded in familiar regulated financial products.” A clear example is the ADCB Securities Virtual Assets Trading Platform, powered by Fuze. This shows a move beyond pilots to real distribution, where established financial brands offer access through regulated channels supported by compliance-focused infrastructure providers.

To date, Fuze has processed over $5 billion in digital asset volume and raised more than $20 million from prestigious investors including Galaxy, e& capital and Further Ventures. The goal is expansion across the Middle East, Turkey, and beyond. Funding at this level supports regulated market entry, deeper integrations with financial institutions, and wider deployment of compliant digital asset rails. 

In this system, Fuze connects institutions to liquidity, trading, and fiat-to-blockchain flows in a controlled way. Fuze was built with regulation at the core, collaborating with regional regulators, banks and institutions to nurture trusted foundations. Therefore, its features have been consciously developed in alignment with regulatory frameworks, enhancing operationalization.

Dfns, the control layer behind digital asset operations

Backed by ADQ and Further Ventures, Dfns is the wallet and signing infrastructure used by over 350 fintechs and institutions to operate digital assets through software, with governance and security designed for regulated environments. Instead of treating a wallet as just “a key in a vault,” Dfns treats it as a whole controlled system: how transactions start, who approves them, what policies apply, and how decisions are recorded and proven. 

Dfns’ role in the institutional stack has expanded since becoming the technical partner behind IBM Digital Asset Haven, a platform that helps financial institutions manage the full digital asset lifecycle, from custody to transactions to settlement. It reflects a broader shift: the wallet layer is no longer a niche crypto component but foundational enterprise infrastructure.

To support regional deployments, Dfns operates a dedicated MPC cluster for the UAE in the AWS “me-central-1” region between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, meeting data residency and latency expectations. The company also supports institutions such as Zodia Custody, Tungsten Custody, and the ADI Foundation through on-premises key deployments designed to meet local regulatory requirements, and these architectures have passed regulatory review.

This is why Fuze selected Dfns as its primary wallet partner. Fuze provides regulated connectivity to markets and payment rails. Dfns provides the control layer with wallet infrastructure, authentication, policies, and auditable signing so assets can be operated programmatically without losing governance under real production constraints: scale, reliability, integration complexity, and strict control requirements.

UAE, the first true institutional crypto market globally

This partnership also reflects geography. The UAE has built one of the most advanced regulatory and institutional environments where digital assets are being integrated into the financial system in a structured way. They have created clear and operational frameworks. In Abu Dhabi, ADGM and its regulator FSRA were early movers and introduced a formal virtual asset framework in 2018, supported by ongoing guidance and supervision. And in March 2022, the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) created its own framework to regulate virtual asset activity in and from Dubai. 

What makes the UAE different is that regulation comes with real institutional participation. Major banks are not waiting on the sidelines. Emirates NBD has expanded its digital asset strategy through custody initiatives and its Digital Asset Lab, and it has launched customer crypto services through licensed partners. First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) has also worked on tokenization initiatives, including preparing a digital bond issuance using HSBC’s Orion platform.

At the sovereign level, the region is investing in infrastructure, exactly where companies like Fuze and Dfns operate. ADQ, a major Abu Dhabi investment platform, supports fintech and digital asset infrastructure through vehicles such as Further Ventures. Digital assets are treated as part of financial modernization, not an experiment.

Purpose-built regulators, mature financial free zones, sovereign investment participation, and active banks and brokers create an environment where adoption can move fast without weakening governance. This is the environment the Dfns–Fuze partnership is built for: institutions launching real products, with real controls, in a market building the legal and financial rails to support them.

Start building on Dfns today: https://app.dfns.io/get-started