DFSA’s June 2025 tokenisation sandbox update points the DIFC toward tokenised bonds, sukuk, fund units, trading, and custody
The Dubai Financial Services Authority’s June 16, 2025 sandbox update is notable because it names asset classes and operating functions under supervised testing. Read with DFSA’s March 2025 tokenisation guide and earlier Investment Token framework, the signal is a regulated capital-markets tokenisation path in the DIFC rather than a broad crypto-policy shift.
Key takeaways
- • It shows the regulator moving from application intake to supervised engagement with selected firms, while naming the asset classes and market functions under consideration: bonds, sukuk, fund units, trading, and safe custody.
- • Because the sandbox sits inside DFSA’s investment-token perimeter and contemporaneous DFSA materials exclude Crypto Tokens and Fiat Crypto Tokens from scope, the signal is tokenised investment infrastructure, not generic crypto liberalisation.
Trigger
DFSA Begins Engagement Firms
On June 16, 2025, the DFSA said it had started engaging with firms selected for the Tokenisation Regulatory Sandbox under the Innovation Testing Licence. The regulator said the sandbox, launched in March 2025, had drawn 96 expressions of interest from the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Applications included proposals involving bonds, sukuk, fund units, and the trading and safe custody of those assets. After review, some applicants were invited into live testing under the ITL, while others were considered mature enough for full authorisation under existing rules. The next step was co-developed testing plans and trials in a controlled environment.
Open source documentSN Desk view
Three features make this signal. First, the June 16 statement is not generic: it names proposed tokenisations of bonds, sukuk, and fund units, plus trading and safe custody. Second, the March 2025 launch materials and tokenisation guide had already defined the sandbox around issuing, trading, holding, and settling tokenised investments, so the June update can be read as an observed application mix rather than abstract regulator messaging.
Third, the DFSA said some applicants were ready for full authorisation under existing rules, which implies the regulator already saw a split between models needing supervised testing and models that could fit the standing perimeter. The regulatory framing is also clear. DFSA’s March 2025 tokenisation guide places the sandbox within tokenised investment products and states that Crypto Tokens and Fiat Crypto Tokens are out of scope. That matches the DFSA’s October 2021 Investment Token framework, which applies to the marketing, issue, trading, and holding of Investment Tokens in or from the DIFC, and its separate November 2022 Crypto Token regime. The June 2025 update is best read as a capital-markets and fund-operations development: tokenised securities, Islamic debt, fund units, trading access, custody, and the controls surrounding those functions. That framing shifts attention from token rhetoric to program design. If bonds, sukuk, and fund units are the named use cases, the binding questions become who may issue, who may distribute, who holds the authoritative record, how safekeeping is arranged, how trading access is controlled, and how servicing or redemptions close. At that stage, however, the evidence stops at supervised entry into testing and a route toward either unrestricted licensing or withdrawal. There is no contemporaneous public proof yet of completed cohort outcomes, scaled live issuance, or broad secondary-market liquidity. June 16, 2025 is best read as a strong supervisory and market-structure signal with bounded claims on adoption.