The recent YouGov Survey in the UAE on the opinions of UAE residents about 16 emerging technologies had some very interesting findings. The survey highlighted the responses of those surveyed on their opinions about the future and impact of these technologies on society. Interestingly awareness about a technology did not necessarily correlate with acceptance or feeling this technology was important or should be invested in. So while crypto took top spot in terms of awareness, it didn’t continue to take the lead when it came to which technologies would become widespread or which technologies are good or which technologies should governments invest in. Cryptocurrency as a term topped the list of technologies that UAE residents have heard about. 50 percent of the 1005 residents surveyed have heard a lot about crypto, 36 percent have heard about it a little and only 14 percent have not heard about it at all. This of course is not surprising given all the recent endeavors the UAE ...

  EnjinStarter, next generation Launchpad for Blockchain games and the metaverse, which is based out of Singapore, could be setting up base soon in UAE. Prakash Somosundram CEO and Co Founder at EnjinStarter recently visited Dubai.   Nigel Hawley board advisor and a investor in True Global Ventures (TGV), which also recently invested 3 million USD in a series A round as a lead investor into Enjinstarter hosted the visit. EnjinStarter has received a total of 8 million in funding since its inception. EnjinStarter, built on JumpNet is enabling creators and game developers to run capital raising campaigns and build communities using blockchain tech. Not only do they issue tokens but provide game developers with a way to explore other innovative ways of raising capital including utilizing NFTs.  They even have an incubation program, supported by an accredited partner network. Concurrently the MENA gaming sector is one of the fastest-growing gaming markets in the world, wi...

  The Abu Dhabi Global Market has launched a crypto vending machine in the free zone area. Users can insert cash or credit card and exchange them for Bitcoin or other crypto currencies. Located in the Galleria Mall, on Al Maryah Island next to ADGM.  As per an article in the National , ADGM stated, " the Kiosk withdrawal is logged via the internet and the puchsed Bitcoins are added to the customer's virtual currency wallet for use in future transactions."  The crypto Kiosk or vending machine is an initiative of World Credit savings a brokerage firm regulated by the FSRA ( Financial Services Regulatory Authority) at ADGM.  This is a big thing given that the last Crypto ATM set up in Dubai was decommissioned in 2019. It was a Bitcoin ATM in the Rixos Premium hotel.  In 2019 there was  only one Bitcoin ATM in existence in the GCC in Bahrain.   In a Linkedin Post shared by the CEO of Bahrain Fintech bay  Khalid Saad  states, ” We have the on...

  In a recent article Binance announced that it had enabled a Dubai Hotel to offer crypto payment facilities. The hotel in question is the Manor by JA resorts located in Al Furjan. As per the article the The Manor hotel is settling payments in BNB (Binance coin), Bitcoin and Ethereum through Binance crypto to crypto payment gateway. As per Mohammed Hanif Al Qassim, Managing Partner of The Manor Hotel, “Virtual assets go in line with The Manor's vision for sustainability and digital transformation, considering its position among top eco-friendly boutique hotels in Dubai.” Richard Teng, Regional Head of MENA at the crypto-platform, “Binance has been actively engaging established local businesses and institutions to further increase the adoption of crypto for our users and the crypto community as a whole. Our partnerships with leading, innovative businesses, such as JA are in line with our vision to enhance crypto adoption across the region." Prior to this Property develop...

  During the World Economic Forum in Davos, CoinDesk carried out an interview with UAE Minister Omar Sultan AlOlama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work. Some big takeaways from his interview that I found interesting were the following. First he noted that he was pleased to see more and more governments embracing crypto and finding use cases for it. He also noted that Blockchain had become more popular and as he stated, “This is good for everyone because you can build a more trust based society that will take us into Web3.0” He also made a comment that while most governments just talk about AI (Artificial Intelligence), the UAE is actually walking the talk. He states, “The UAE is taking a proactive role to regulate and deploy AI in environments and is working to attract AI startups.” He believes given the diversity in UAE demographics AI systems developed in UAE will be less biased towards specific ethnicities, genders, etc.. He also s...

  At The World Economic Forum in Davos UAE’s DP World, a global end to end logistics provider announced that it would be utilizing the metaverse not for social networks, entertainment or enhancing customer experience but for increasing operational efficiency. This is the first time that a metaverse solution is being utilized in the logistics industry and for operational and educational purposes. The Metaverse, DPMETAWORLD, will aim to bring cutting edge virtual solutions to real world supply chain challenges driving both efficiency and transparency. Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group chairman and CEO of DP World announced this during the World Economic Forum Annual meeting at Davos. The DPMETAWORLD platform will be launched at the end of 2022. Bin Sulayem said: “At DP World, we don’t respond to change – we think ahead and anticipate it. We know that the industries of the future will not be industries of the hand, but of the mind. So we have to deploy industry-leading solutions...

  Qatar will witness a blockchain revolution summit on the 26 th of May 2022 at St. Regis Doha Qatar, with the participation of Dr. Don Tapscott , Executive Chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute, and well known as a leading Blockchain expert. The summit is being organized by the Blockchain Research Institute Middle East, the first regional branch of Blockchain Research Institute based out of Qatar. The event is set to discuss opportunities to create industry solution frameworks and guidelines leveraging blockchain technologies to secure data, reduce costs and improve timelines. The interesting highlights of this summit are the speakers and sponsors. Aside from Don Tapscott, speakers include Fadi Nasser, Chief Commercial Officer of Meeza Qatar. Meeza is also sponsoring the event. Nebil Ben Aissa, Chief Executive officer for Nexxo, a private equity investment network dedicated to FinTech is also participating. In addition Khalid Al Ansari a Doctor of Law (JD) and a P...

  Cheeze, rooted in the UAE, welcomes Ex Netflix Co-Founder Marc Randolph to its board of Directors. This comes after the completion of Cheeze’s second seed round where Randolph continued his investment. As quoted on Forbes Randolph stated, "I am very excited about joining the Cheeze, Inc. board. The team Simon (Hudson, Cheeze CEO and Founder) is building is really impressive, and I am excited to see the progress they make," Randolph said. In March 2021, Cheeze Blockchain NFT photo application teamed up with UAE Based SRG Holding to develop minting studio for NFTs. Cheeze partnered with UAE based property developer to offer its engineering team a new base to develop and launch a new minting studio for NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Cheeze has partnered with Mohamed AlRafi, Founder of SRG Holding in the UAE, to start work on creating an engineering headquarters in Dubai and will continue to hire engineers over the coming months. Cheeze was established in Silicon Valley in ...

  BSV Global Blockchain Convention which commenced today in Dubai UAE is aiming to bring Blockchain back to Satoshi’s true vision and make it useful efficient and good. Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President of BSV Blockchain, told attendees in his opening speech, “In the world today we are seeing too many coins, more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarket. We are seeing algorithmic stablecoins crash like in the case of Luna from Terra, with many of these coins being connected to crime. This is not the world I entered into when I started in Blockchain. Today we are here to start a conversation around building a world of Blockchain that is better. Build a world where Satoshi’s vision for BSV original protocol, one of P2P electronic payment transactions, and a data blockchain infrastructure useful for everyone. We are here to make the blockchain useful again.” He goes on to state that the Satoshi vision was one of efficiency, honesty, a world of good. Bitcoin was created to ...

WadzPay will list its token on a Middle East crypto asset Exchange soon, according to its Group CEO. In a tweet WadzPay CEO Anish Jain states “We will also expand presence to regional exchanges in UAE, India, Africa and South America.” The WadzPay ecosystem provides infrastructure for emerging CBDC and Stable coin technologies allowing governments and institutions to sandbox or commercialize programs both at a domestic or international level. WadzPay is building an interoperable and agnostic blockchain-based payments ecosystem. The company was founded in 2018 in Singapore and is currently operating in South East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and Africa. As per their website the company saw the potential for CBDC and Digital Assets leading the next revolution in the payments industry: by enabling faster payments, improvements in security, cost efficiency with optionality. They claim to be working with large international payment companies, banks and other large global companies t...

  CoinMENA Chief Operating Officer Dina Semaan announced today on twitter that CoinMENA crypto exchange is now serving clients in Qatar. This would be the first crypto exchange to officially announce that it is serving clients in Qatar. As per her tweet , “Starting from today, CoinMENA services are now being offered in Qatar, making us the first regulated crypto exchange to be offering services in Qatar.”   She adds with this expansion we now offer CoinMENA services in six Arab countries, and we continue to achieve our goals of offering the simplest and easiest method for trading crypto.” This comes after Qatar’s FIFA 2022 took on sponsors such as Crypto.com, one of the international crypto exchanges globally. It also comes after FIFA signed up AlGorand Blockchain as a sponsor and partner for their digitization plans in the sports and entertainment sector. CoinMENA was first regulated in Bahrain, and then sought regulation in UAE, and offers its services in KSA, Kuwait, Om...

  800,000 Saudi’s used digital currencies in 2021 with the value of virtual asset transactions in Saudi at around 20 billion USD and this is expected to grow five times over the next five years. The information was shared by Ali AlObaid, Managing Director of BitOasis crypto exchange, to Arab News In the article he states, “We believe that this can grow by five times over the next five years. Last year, KSA probably represented 15 percent of Gulf Cooperation Council and Middle East and North Africa activity.” He added that around 4 percent of adult population in MENA will have invested in crypto by the end of 2022. While in the USA 20 percent of adults have invested in crypto. BitOasis user base in KSA is primarily millennials, 25-34 year old's, with 30 percent of those trading on BitOasis between the ages of 35-44 years. In a YouGov survey recently it noted that 1.8 percent of Saudi Arabian residents currently trade in cryptocurrencies. Yet it is Morocco that tops crypto own...

  Three villas in Lebanon can now be bought using fractional NFTs ( Non Fungible Tokens). Utilizing Aqarchain which is the first crowdfunding fractional NFT investment platform for properties globally, investors of all income levels can own a piece of property in Lebanon and make a return on investment by receiving dividends from rent and sales. Aqarchain.io has listed Villa Ekolu valued at 640,000 USD divided into 3,746 shares and so far 10.73 percent has been subscribed to it. Aqarchain is offering 7 percent guaranteed Return on Investment. There are two other villas as well Villa Ekahi valued at 525,000 USD and Villa Hauoli valued at 415,000 USD. This is the first time property in Lebanon has been tokenized as NFTs and listed. Aqarchain,  a blockchain powered real estate asset tokenization platform, which aims to create a decentralized ecosystem where investment in real estate is as easy as investing in shares on the stock market, has now launched a NFT marketplace...

  So even with the tumultuous times that the crypto market is seeing this past week, and despite the fear and apprehension on the state of crypto, stablecoins, and NFTs given the regulation discussions happening across the globe, one thing has kept my spirits high and optimistic. It is no other than the crypto TVC ad for BitOasis on MBC. This is big news! Big News because it gives me a premonition that crypto will soon become a regulated mainstream item in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most will ask, why link the BitOasis Crypto TVC with possible regulations in Saudi Arabia. The answer to me is simple. MBC Group is a media conglomerate owned by the Saudi government based out of MENA with headquarters in Dubai UAE. So either MBC needs the money so badly it doesn’t care what ads air on their station, or MBC is warming up to crypto which could mean that the government of Saudi Arabia is warming up to crypto as well. It is not so surprising; In Ramadan Saudi MBC Group launched t...

So Now the UAE is being dubbed the Wall Street of Crypto. The terminology was first coined by no other than CZ (Zhao Changpeng) the Founder of Binance, whom a BloomBerg article noted as saying that the UAE is definitely the headquarters of Binance. This is the first time in the history of Binance where it actually announces it even has a headquarter. It would seem that the Wall Street of Crypto has ousted both France and Bahrain as the base for Binance, as well as Singapore which Binance retreated from several months ago. In the meantime Binance is actually bringing on Wall Street veterans such as Vishal Sacheendran, the former New York Mellon Bank executive who now holds the position of UAE based director for the Middle East and North Africa.   Richard Teng the head of Middle East and North Africa at Binance says more appointments from the banking sector will follow. So far the UAE has granted licenses to a handful of international and global crypto exchanges including the ...