A customer buys a token advertised as “backed by gold”. What have they bought? A share of gold in a vault? A promise that someone will deliver gold? Or an investment that pays according to the gold price? If the business cannot answer that question clearly, neither can the customer.
That uncertainty also matters to regulation. The label describes a connection to gold but leaves the customer’s legal entitlement unexplained. For a business planning a token launch, the analysis begins with that entitlement, the services offered around it and the jurisdiction in which those services take place.
Two sets of rules administered by the UAE Capital Market Authority (CMA) help explain the distinction: the 2025 regulation for security tokens and commodity token contracts, and the 2026 framework for virtual asset service providers and alternative trading systems. They address different aspects of a token business. Understanding their relationship helps a founder ask the right questions before
