In the fourth annual Chainalysis Global crypto adoption index , identifying countries where the most people are putting the greatest share of their wealth into cryptocurrency, once again Morocco takes lead and is listed as one of the top 20 countries placing an Arab country on the map, while Turkey places the MENA region. The 2023 report states that global adoption is down, but not in one crucial subset of the world. More specifically, there’s one crucial segment of countries where grassroots adoption has seen a much stronger recovery than anywhere else: Lower middle income (LMI) countries. The full report will be out in October, but compared to 2022 , the countries on the top 20 list are still almost the same.   In 2022 Turkey, Egypt and Morocco led not only in MENA   region but globally. All three countries were in the top thirty list of countries with most crypto savings, usage of crypto for remittance payments and permissive crypto regulations. As for Sub Sah...

    Cardano blockchain suppored venture capitalist, EMURGO Africa and Middle East, has invested $250K in African blockchain carbon market tech company, ChangeBlock. Changeblock, a carbon market technology company, aims to revolutionize the carbon trading landscape by leveraging the power of blockchain technology. With this investment, EMURGO Africa aims to foster sustainable development and environmental responsibility while driving transformative change within the carbon market. "Our investment in ChangeBlock is in line with our commitment to foster the development of climate change reversal technologies and impactful solutions on Cardano’s third-generation and environmentally-sustainable blockchain.” Said Ahmed M. Amer, CEO of EMURGO Africa and Executive Director of EMURGO MEA.   “Together with ChangeBlock, we hope to bring the world’s regulators, business leaders, and global changemakers to foster and double down on their commitment to a global net zero strat...

  In 2022, it appears there is a high level of public interest from the number of online keyword searches for crypto, crypto payments, blockchain, metaverse, NFTs and other related terms. These keywords, for instance, are the top searches in Arab countries. This comes as no surprise as nations in the MENA region were among the list of countries receiving crypto, with the greater region becoming one of the regions that saw the most growth in crypto regulations. According to Chainalysis, while the MENA region is one of the smallest crypto markets, its growth to $566 billion received in cryptocurrency between July 2021 and June 2022 shows adoption is rising rapidly. UAE places 10 th for highest search regions for ‘crypto’ As per Google Trends , there were high inquiries for the term “crypto” in the country from December 2021 to December 2022. The high volume of searches for “crypto” in the Arab state placed it at 10th, followed by Morocco at 11th place, Lebanon (17th) and Tunis...

  UK based Blockchain company Valereum has received consent from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (“GFSC”) to complete the acquisition of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (“GSX”). Valereum will utilize GSX to expand access of early stage and small cap companies in the Middle East, India and Africa to European Capital. In early 2022, Valereum stated that it would be purchasing 90% of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX) to create the world's first bourse where shares and crypto assets can be traded Valereum at the time stated that GSX would the first fully regulated bridge that links the fiat and crypto markets. As they noted at the time, "This will give listed instruments on the GSX access to a regulated pool of crypto capital that is not available anywhere else, and it will give cryptocurrency holders the ability to have a direct, verifiable holding in fiat securities." The recent press release notes that there is a significant gap in the available small cap m...

  Singaporean, Stratez Capital with offices in UAE, a boutique firm that focuses on assisting enterprises who are planning to elevate to the next phase of growth, has partnered with NewTek Holdings to develop tokenized commodity trading and real-estate projects on the Blockchain. As per the press release , the Middle East has been identified by NewTek as a priority market, and the company is initially looking to focus on major real estate projects in Dubai.  “This is an exciting partnership, and in line with the investment and strategy objectives of the company, and we feel we can add huge value with our expertise and investments. NewTek brings real asset value and a clear vision in one of the fastest growing areas where real world assets combine with future Web3 and blockchain technology,” said Vik Pillai, Managing Partner at Singapore-based Stratez, announcing the agreement today. Qurashi, CEO of London-based NewTek, said: “I’ve been very impressed by the depth and variety t...