Report contents
MENA · Emerging
Bahrain
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 47 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +0 |
| Inflation 0.3% · unbanked 18% · remittances 0.1% GDP · capital controls 0 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.037 |
| Need multiplier | ×0.556 |
| Livability score | 0.311 |
Raw 47/84 = 0.560 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.04, from five components: inflation 0.3% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 18% of adults, remittances 0.1% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.00 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×0.56. Livability score 0.311, rank #70 of 79.
Three findings
The Gulf's first comprehensive crypto rulebook, and still its most complete
The Central Bank of Bahrain's Crypto-Asset Module dates to 2019, the region's earliest formal licensing framework. Binance holds a CBB Class 4 licence from January 2022, the GCC's first licensed exchange, and a Stablecoin Issuance and Offering Module launched in July 2025 permitting dinar-pegged, dollar-pegged, and other approved fiat-backed stablecoins. Tax is a clean zero: no personal income tax, no capital gains tax.
A welcome mat for firms, the heaviest friction for users
Bahrain pairs that openness with one of the most aggressive Travel Rule (mandatory transmission of sender and receiver identity data) regimes anywhere: full know-your-customer data must accompany every transfer regardless of amount, with no minimum threshold. The result is a paradox, namely that the country easiest to license a crypto business in imposes a compliance event on every single transaction.
A high score with almost no need behind it
Bahrain ranks #50 on raw capability but falls to #70 once need is applied, a drop of 20 places, because the Crypto-Necessity Index reads just 0.04: inflation 0.3 percent, remittances 0.1 percent of GDP, zero capital controls. As a Gulf state with a 44 percent non-national workforce, Bahrain is a paradigmatic net-sender economy, so its remittance corridor utility scores 0.
In one line
"Bahrain built the Gulf's first crypto rulebook and licensed its first exchange before its neighbours had a framework at all. The infrastructure is world-class; what is missing is a population that needs it."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 4/4, actively liberalising. The Stablecoin Issuance and Offering Module took effect 4 July 2025, and the CBB granted its first in-principle stablecoin approval (AX Coin) in early 2026, confirming the framework is operational rather than symbolic. Category 3 crypto-asset licensing continued through the year.