(Bloomberg) -- QCP Capital, one of the largest options trading desks for digital assets, won initial approval to operate in Abu Dhabi, becoming the latest crypto firm to expand in the Middle East.

The seven-year-old company received in-principle approval from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market to conduct regulated activities, according to a statement Tuesday. The firm is the first Singapore-based digital-asset market maker and broker dealer to receive preliminary approval, according to a spokesperson of ADGM.

The United Arab Emirates has been ramping up efforts to attract more crypto companies, luring operations from Binance, OKX and Nomura’s Laser Digital. QCP, which did nearly $60 billion in crypto derivatives trading volume last year, plans to relocate some of its more than 70 employees to Abu Dhabi once it receives a full license. 

“Abu Dhabi has got very progressive regulators in that they are thinking about the digital assets as a complete ecosystem with all of traditional finance,” Melvin Deng, chief executive officer of QCP, said in an interview. 

The geographical location also played a role in QCP’s decision to expand to the region, said Deng, given crypto’s global nature. The monthly volume of crypto derivatives stood at $1.33 trillion as of September 2023, according to a report by Ernst & Young. Most of the activity in crypto derivatives takes place outside the US. 

“The Middle East is actually quite a good confluence for capital flows from Europe, to the Middle East region, as well as Asia,” said Deng, who joined the QCP in 2021 after spending over 15 years at Standard Chartered Bank. “So it’s got similar properties to what we have in Singapore, and we want to leverage on their capabilities to establish another marketplace.”

QCP recently announced a partnership with Abu Dhabi-based Further Ventures, in which the firms plan to develop new products in digital assets. Once QCP receives the full license, the firm will focus first on core businesses such as trading and market making in the region.

“As the digital assets landscape continues to evolve in the Middle East, we anticipate more companies like QCP to recognise the progressive and comprehensive nature of ADGM’s regulatory frameworks, fostering confidence in choosing Abu Dhabi as their regional base,” Arvind Ramamurthy, chief of market development at ADGM, said in the statement.

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