The senior advisor of Saudi Central Bank   Anthony Butler   for blockchain, AI and digital assets recently posted   on LinkedIn new job positions opening up in Riyadh KSA. The roles he mentioned included sSoftware engineers with hands-on experience working with DLT  ( Distributed Ledger Technology) protocols and applications. According to Butler the role requires someone with experience implementing solutions using tech such as Ethereum, Hyperledger Besu, Hyperledger Fabric, and/or R3 Corda.” He adds   these talents should particularly   be knowledgable of solutions involving tokenisation of real world assets. The job applicant should understand the functional and non-functional aspects of designing such solutions and be able to work with broader engineering teams to lead design and implementation. Understanding of DeFi and emerging areas, such as self-sovereign identity. Also required are software engineers/full-stack developers at all levels ...

  After receiving is preliminary approval for a license, Bybit has jumped to the next stage with a minimum viable product preparatory license from Dubai’s virtual asset regulatory authority ( VARA). VARA placed ByBit on its public registery. This comes after global crypto exchange ByBit partnered with UAE’s DMCC freezone to offer financial support totaling $136,000 for new crypto businesses looking to set up in the DMCC crypto center. Bybit's pledge of financial support in the amount of $136,000 will be used to kickstart the growth journeys of 15 new Web3 companies at the DMCC Crypto Centre. Again Bybit also supported crypto and blockchain ecosystem in the UAE with the University of Sharjah. Bybit contributed $272.000 equivalent to 1 million AED to establish a scholarship fund to support 20 students to accelerate their academic and research career into fintech and blockchain at the American University of Sharjah. In March 2023 Bybit was one of the global crypto exchanges...

  Swiss private Bank Julius Baer in a recent Bloomberg article announced that it will be expanding its crypto wealth management services in Dubai UAE. This will be the first digital assets service offering outside of Swtizerland by the bank. As per the article, Julius Baer’s subsidiary JBME will apply for a digital assets license variation on top of its existing permissions in the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DIFC). This would allow the entity to arrange and provide advice and custodial services on digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. This is not surprising given that in Julius Baer’s recent global wealth and Lifestyle report, it published that Dubai had risen to the seventh position demonstrating its remarkable success a a destination for the wealthy. The city has emerged as the preferred choice for companies and entrepreneurs seeking a foothold in the Middle East and is highly favoured by expatriates. By providing an attractive tax fr...

    In a recent blog post by CoinW, a crypto exchange, the company unilaterally announced that it has received an initial approval from Dubai Virtual Asset regulatory Authority. According to CoinW this is a significant step in their global expansion which will lead to substantial investments in the UAE market and MENA region. As per the post the initial approval from VARA means that CoinW will be able to operate its regional business in Dubai within the newly announced regulatory framework and serve as its foundation for operation in the region. Sonia Shaw the Global Cooperation Director of CoinW based out of UAE, commented that the UAE is growing into an important global cryptocurrency hub, with Dubai being the first global economy to establish a dedicated regulatory authority for the virtual asset industry. It is foreseeable that the cryptocurrency business in the Middle East will thrive in the coming years. She states, “CoinW is optimistic about the potential of th...

    Swiss based Buildrs, a blockchain, metaverse and Web3 infrastructure provider has announced that it has opened a location in the UAE and is embarking on its first project with its first customers. Buildrs is specialized in the virtual economy, blockchain, and gamification. Buildrs mission is to accelerate the adoption of Web3. Virtual assets, digital ownership, co-creation, and transparency are at the core of the experiences we build. The company develops a portfolio of products and use cases across various industries as real estate, hospitality, entertainment, and gaming. Buildrs empower them using the original platform, which covers all aspects of virtual assets, the virtual economy, and the Metaverse. Viktor Andreas, Founder and CEO of Buildrs stated in a LinkedIN video , “ We are very excited to be here in Dubai and continue our journey providing Web3 infrastructure which we have started three years ago in Swtizerland. UAE has created one of the most innovative...

    UAE Halliday Growth, a non-bank trade finance provider has partnered with Blockchain entity InvoiceMate to offer Blockchain AI powered invoice financing in the UAE. The agreement was signed during the World Token Summit 2023 held in Dubai UAE. UAE based, InvoiceMate is a blockchain powered platform for trusted & efficient invoice processing, payments & financing. Speaking to LaraontheBlock Muhammad Salman Anjum, Founder of InvoiceMate, stated, “For us at InvoiceMate, this partnership is very valuable as it brings diversification of experiences to a real venture.” He adds, “Halliday Growth is an established brand with extensive experience in the UAE market. InvoiceMate is eager to share its tech competency to reach the common goal of financial inclusion for MSMEs in the region. Blockchain and AI powered InvoiceMate offers a sustainable solution for working capital problems of the businesses.   We are looking forward to serve UAE together.” Prior to t...

  UAE Ministry of Education (MoE) has launched the blockchain enabled “automated attestation” service to make it easier for university graduates to get their certificates verified quickly. All attested university certificates will be provided through the blockchain-powered UAE Pass app, in cooperation with the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), enabling students to access their attested certificates in a faster and more reliable manner. During the first phase, six licensed universities, comprising almost 11,000 students, will benefit from the new service. According to WAM news agency the   announcement was made during a press conference attended by Dr. Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, Minister of Education; Dr. Mohammed Al Mualla, Under-Secretary for Academic Affairs of Higher Education at Ministry of Education, and representatives from UAE-based media outlets. Certificates issued by UAE-based higher education institutions (HEIs) can now be...

  Digital assets infrastructure provider for financial institutions, Fuze Finance has been chosen as one of 15 startups to participate in Abu Dhabi’s Hub 71 2023 cohort. As per the website of Fuze Finance, the company was purpose built for the Middle East because the company believes the Middle East will be the epicentre of digital asset innovation. The MENA market, is seeing rapid growth in digital assets. Digital asset transactions of over $566 billion from June 2021 to June 20 22, 48% more than the year prior. Fuze was among 15 startups chosen because it is aligned to Abu Dhabi’s strategic ambitions, including   healthtech, fintech and edtech firms. The addition of the latest cohort has increased the size of Hub71’s ecosystem to more than 240 startups. In the latest cohort, 67 per cent of the selected startups are headquartered outside the UAE, reinforcing the increasing the status of Abu Dhabi as a global innovation and business hub. The 15 startups originate fr...

  The Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority [VARA] has announced a schedule of fees covering the issuance of no-objection certificates to proprietary traders, amendments or withdrawal of licence applications, and the submission of whitepapers for VARA review. All proprietary traders will require a no-objection certificate to carry out the activity of proprietary trading in or from the Emirate of Dubai. VARA shall confirm its evaluation of a firm’s activity through the firm’s commercial licensor and firms assessed as carrying out the activity of proprietary trading will be required to pay an annual NOC fee of AED 1,000. For the avoidance of doubt, there is no additional fee payable in relation to the requirement for mandatory registration applicable to large proprietary traders (under Regulation IV.A.7). Licensed firms wishing to amend details of their VARA licence will be charged a licence update fee of AED 500 per request. Licensed firms seeking to withdraw from Dubai and...

    UAE Abu Dhabi University’s department of computer science and IT has hosted the first 5ire Web3 Blockchain hackathon in collaboration with 5ire and MetaDecrypt. Over 50 teams representing nine universities acros shte UAE participated in a bid to further enhance students’ knowledge of blockchain technology and innovation and to strengthen blockchain education, research and entrepreneurship. ADU’s faculty members and 5ire trainers introduced students and academics to Web3 and blockchain technology, fostering innovation in the next generation of developers through the utilisation of several technologies such as Metamask, NFT, 5irechain, Ethereum and IPFS. In addition, participants from all coding and programming levels received expert guidance, valuable resources and networking opportunities to ignite their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. As part of the event, students attended a workshop focused on Web3 and blockchain technologies, as well as entrepreneur...

      UAE Cypher Capital is one of the investors in Concordia, a multi-chain risk and collateral management protocol for digital assets. Concordia closed a successful $4 million seed round in June, attracting significant investments from Tribe Capital, Kraken Ventures and UAE based Cypher Capital among other investors including Saison Capital.  Concordia’s vision is to create an interconnected, permissionless, and optimized DeFi ecosystem that promotes accessibility, affordability, and developer-friendly environments, ultimately unlocking the true transformative potential of DeFi. Concordia’s ground-breaking solution attracted the attention of leading Dubai VC Cypher Capital, who are building their portfolio into one of the leading web3 centric portfolios globally. Bill Qian, Chairman of Cypher Capital said “Concordia represents a significant milestone in the evolution of decentralized finance. As Chairman of Cypher Capital, I am thrilled to be part of this...

  Ukraine headquartered Hacken, a blockchain security auditor that aims to make Web3 a safer place, has partnered with Dubai Blockchain Center. As per a Hacken team tweet, “ This is a pivotal step towards accelerating blockchain adoption in Dubai and ensuring enhanced security in the tech scene.” Igor Hacken, Business Development Manager at Hacken tweeted , “Very proud moment for hackenclub expanding into the UAE joining the efforts of keeping the blockchain secure with Dubai Blockchain Center and   Dr. Marwan Alzarouni. Stay tuned to learn more about all of our contributions in to the rapidly growing region.” The   collaboration will also include providing   mentoring, education on blockchain security and contributing to the development of regulatory requirements for project licensing. Hacken offers various solutions including smart contract audit, proof of reserves, and others. In February 2023, Hacken researchers identified a bug in the Binance zkSNARK-bas...

    As the Blockchain ecosystem grows in the MENA region, Blockchain Hashgraph Association, an independent non-profit organization focused on building a vibrant innovative ecosystem for startups, enterprises, and government institutions leveraging the capabilities of Hedera Hashgraph   will be expanding into the UAE and launching Hashgraph Ventures out of Abu Dhabi’s ADGM ( Abu Dhabi Global Market) with several important large enterprise collaborations within the UAE.  In an article in Khaleej Times, Kamal Youssefi, president of the board of The Hashgraph Association, emphasized UAE's appeal for blockchain companies, citing its innovative regulatory framework, strong talent base and diverse community. He states in the article,   “I have just returned from the governing council meetings held at Google’s campus in San Francisco, and there was a consensus that the UAE’s innovative regulatory framework, strong talent base and diverse community make it an attracti...

  If you are a GCC or MENA based family office that has a portfolio that includes precious metals such as gold, silver or others, or you intend to in the near future, but are hesitant because in the past you were unable to make revenues from the purchase, you now can. With the advent of blockchain, Web3 technologies and tokenization a sweet spot is upon us.   Precious metal owners can generate earnings on their gold and make it work for them just by holding it in tokenized form. Aurus Technologies, headquartered in the UAE with offices in the UK is offering family offices the opportunity to tokenize real world assets through its sustainable tokenization as a service solution (TAAS) platform. The GCC and MENA region has all the ingredients to make gold work for family offices. First the region itself is a hot bed for investors, secondly precious metals especially gold are well revered and invested in and third Web3 technologies including tokenization on the blockchain is re...

    The Saudi Venture Capital (SVC) has invested $30 million in the $150 million Bedaya Fund II, managed by UAE Shorooq Partners to back early-stage startups with a focus on fintech, digital assets, Web3, Metaverse, DeFi, and other areas. At the launch of Bedaya Fund II, in a press release Shane Shin founding partner at Shorooq Partners stated,   “We have always been early movers, be that robo-advisory, crowdfunding, SME lending, open banking, card issuer processing, and so forth. We believe Web 3.0 models like DeFi, NFT, Metaverse are going to be the key players in the next iteration of online business.” Bedaya Fund II is an early stage venture capital fund managed by Shorooq Partners. The fund is located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and invests in Northern Africa, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan. The fund targets investments in the fintech and software sectors. On Pitchbook they benchmark the Bedaya II fund against EchoVC Cha...

    In a recent Forbes piece , it was noted that the virtual asset regulatory authority in Dubai expects to see several hundred virtual assets exchanges and service providers enter its licensing regime. This comes as CEOs of major crypto exchanges laud both UAE and Hong Kong as crypto hubs. As per Henson Orser CEO of VARA, speaking to Forbes, “VARA makes Dubai one of a handful of global jurisdictions implementing a mature framework for crypto and virtual assets. The VARA framework expects to see several hundred virtual asset exchanges and service providers in Dubai start to come into its licensing regime in 2023.” At the same time Hong Kong is also competing to get a piece of the crypto and digital asset market with the launch of new crypto licensing regime. In addition Hong Kong’s banking regulator is pressuring financial institutions including HSBC and Standard Chartered to take on crypto exchanges as clients. In parallel the Central Bank of UAE came out with its ne...

  Gemini crypto exchange announced that it has commenced with the process of acquiring a crypto exchange license in the UAE to better serve customers based in the country. According to Gemini post, “ As a forward-thinking, global financial hub, the UAE is continuing its tradition of leadership by establishing itself as a fast-emerging hub for crypto. By applying for a license, we will be taking another step towards making Gemini a truly global company and advancing our mission to unlock the next era of financial, personal, and creative freedom for all.” In the week of June 11 th 2023, Gemini met with stakeholders thought the region to learn more about the local regulatory requirements and the needs of crypto users. Gemini added, “ As part of Gemini’s 2022 Global State of Crypto Report, we took a look at adoption of crypto globally across 20 countries. We found that those in the UAE were rapidly acquiring crypto and putting it to use making in-person purchases. We also foun...