Tokenization & Digital Investment Platform (Dubai, UAE)

In 2023 Dubai had cemented its position as the world's leading virtual assets jurisdiction — VARA published its comprehensive Virtual Assets and Related Activities Regulations in February 2023, giving the market the first fully codified rulebook in the region. Investment companies across the emirate now had clear compliance targets but needed production-grade digital infrastructure to meet them. A Dubai-based investment company (L.L.C) operating in real-world asset (RWA) tokenization — the dominant blockchain narrative of 2023, with BlackRock, Hamilton Lane, and Siemens entering the space — needed a controlled, transparent, and legally compliant entry point for international investors: securely collect and store user data, conduct KYC/verification meeting both UAE federal AML/CFT requirements and the newly codified VARA guidelines, provide access to Private Sale rounds with on-chain token allocation, and ensure transaction transparency with a full audit trail and role-based access control. Most tokenization platforms in the MENA region were either unregulated DeFi frontends carried over from the 2021‑2022 cycle or over-engineered enterprise solutions with 6+ month delivery timelines and pre-2023 compliance assumptions. The client needed a production-grade platform combining a web investment product, a Private Sale module, an EVM-compatible blockchain layer for ERC-20 token issuance on Polygon PoS (chosen for sub-cent gas fees critical for investor onboarding UX), and an operational admin panel — delivered in 12 weeks to meet the Q3 2023 Private Sale launch deadline.

Designed and built a 6-module digital investment platform on React 18 + Next.js 13 (App Router) frontend and Node.js 18 LTS + PostgreSQL 15 backend, with Solidity 0.8.19 smart contracts deployed on Polygon PoS via Hardhat: (1) Onboarding & Registration — user sign-up with progressive validation via Zod schemas (shared between client and server), profile status state machine, and step-by-step progress flow with email verification (Nodemailer + AWS SES); (2) KYC / Identity Verification — multi-document collection supporting Emirates ID, EU passports, and US driver's licenses, 4-status verification pipeline (pending → approved → rejected → resubmission) with Prisma ORM state transitions, file upload to S3 with AES-256 encryption at rest via AWS KMS, EXIF metadata stripping, perceptual hash duplicate detection, and full action logging with IP and User-Agent capture; (3) Investor Dashboard — Next.js 13 App Router with React Server Components for initial data load, client components with SWR for real-time availability counters, profile verification statuses, transaction history with CSV export, and participation management; (4) Private Sale Module — investor participation scenarios with conditions, configurable per-round limits, and idempotent state transitions (XState v4 state machine on backend), payment confirmation (manual operator flow or webhook integration), ERC-20 token allocation triggered by confirmed payment with on-chain settlement via ethers.js v6; (5) Admin Panel & Operations — protected by JWT + RBAC middleware (3 roles: user/admin/ops), user and KYC status management, request processing queue with assignment, product/round CRUD with soft-delete, admin audit journal with immutable append-only PostgreSQL table; (6) Blockchain Layer — Solidity 0.8.19 ERC-20 token contract with OpenZeppelin 4.9 (AccessControl, Pausable, ERC20Snapshot for dividend distribution), deployed on Polygon PoS mainnet via Hardhat with deterministic deployment (CREATE2), verified on Polygonscan, integrated with web platform via ethers.js v6 provider with typed contract bindings (TypeChain).