Capital and Prudential Requirements for Virtual Asset Firms Under ADGM's FSRA
Anyone raising a fund or building a trading venue in Abu Dhabi Global Market eventually runs into the same wall, and it usually catches them off guard. The technology build is finished, the team is hired, and then someone asks how much capital the entity actually needs to hold on its balance sheet before the Financial Services Regulatory Authority will even consider the application. FSRA capital requirements virtual assets rules are not a footnote in the licensing process, they are one of the first structural decisions a firm needs to get right, and getting them wrong late in the process tends to cost months. I want to walk through how this actually works, because the framework is more nuanced than a single number, and firms that treat it as a checkbox exercise usually end up scrambling to raise additional capital right before authorisation. The Base Capital Requirement Sets the Floor The FSRA organizes authorised firms into categories based on the nature of their regulated ac...