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...

  Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce ( ABCC) in a recent visit presented Morocco's customs entity with the features and benefits of Ellos Blockchain and aligned the next steps to use the platform. ABCC developed Ellos Platform as a distributed digital ledger to enhance its supply chain documentation, effectively tracking all information regarding any product being sold across the Brazilian and Arab markets, including all commercial, banking, trade, and export transactions from end to end. Buyers will be able to access relevant product information upon scanning a QR code on its packaging, ensuring customer satisfaction and quality of goods. Within the blockchain, stakeholders will be able to review the involvement of manufacturers, transporters, point of sale (POS), and others through immutable data. Using the highest technology, the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce developed Easy Trade, the Ellos Blockchain system responsible for sending the documents required by the Arab cu...

  In July 2023, the US   Department of Justice on Monday charged a Moroccan national accused of impersonating OpenSea marketplace functions in order to make off with cryptocurrencies and NFTs, including a Bored Ape. Apart from NFTs, Oulahyane is accused of stealing ether (ETH). Prosecutors accused Soufiane Oulahyane, 25, of defrauding a Manhattan resident and others of approximately $450,000 of digital assets in September 2021.   According to the allegations, the DOJ alleges Oulahyane “spoofed” OpenSea, creating a site that mimicked the real OpenSea to trick customers into logging in and swiping their OpenSea credentials in the process. He allegedly bought “paid advertisements on a popular search engine” to boost the fake page. “Oulahyane is alleged to have operated a spoof website to gain unauthorized access to victims’ cryptocurrency wallets to steal their cryptocurrency and NFTs,” FBI Acting Assistant Director in Charge Christie Curtis said. The DOJ charged Oulah...

  During Gitex Africa, held in Morocco from 31 May – 2 June 2023, IR4LAB, a Saudi-based company specialized in disruptive technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence., announced that it would be expanding its operations into Africa. The announcement was made during Gitex Africa.  The expansion is part of IR4LAB’s commitment to the African continent and their aim to spur innovation in deep technologies and implement use cases utilizing IR4LAB’s Blockchain solution, DocCerts as well as other solutions offered. Mohamed El Kandri, CTO and Co-Founder of IR4LAB, who made the announcement at the event, stated, “We are happy to be expanding into the African market. We believe that Africa’s digital economy will grow and we want to be part of this growth in innovation and digitization, but also building local capabilities right from Morocco to Africa”. According to Mckinsey & Company, Africa’ digital economy should top $712 billion by 2050 fostered by its youth...

  During the Qatar Economic Forum organized by Bloomberg, Ola Doudin, Co-Founder and CEO of UAE based BitOasis participated in a panel alongside Yat Siu, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Animoca Brands to discuss “Harnessing the Power of Blockchain” Doudin uncovered during the panel that BitOasis would be the first regulated virtual asset platform in KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). She stated, “We are working with regulators in KSA to be the first regulated platform in Saudi and other larger markets.” She also mentioned that BitOasis is in discussions with regulators in Egypt and Morocco. She discussed how in both Egypt and Morocco, citizens are interested in access to tokenized dollars, better known as stablecoins especially in countries with high inflation rates and easy access to these stablecoins. According to her, this is a challenge to regulators and is something they will have to seriously look at. This comes after BitOasis became the first crypto broker to receive...

  The Arab country of Morocco has made it to the top 10 global list of countries who have a craze for Meme coins according to CoinGecko recent report . For those who haven’t heard of Meme coins they are a crypto genre that has a huge online community which supports the crypto currencies growth. They are sometimes identified with animated character or animal meme images. During the recent cryptocurrency boom, top currencies to gain meme coin status included Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. According to CoinGeck, the meme coin craze in 2023 has been led by the United States (US), India and the United Kingdom (UK), where more than half of the meme coin fans this year are based. Meme coins are also popular in Southeast Asia’s Philippines and Malaysia, Nigeria and Morocco on the African continent, Oceania’s Australia and New Zealand, and Canada. The top 10 countries leading the meme coin craze in 2023 make up 82.9% or the majority of interest in the speculative assets. The US is unsurp...

  The TRIPLE A January 2023 crypto ownership country report  noted that the number of cryptocurrency users has increased since January 2022. In January 2023 there were 420 million crypto owners globally; this is up from their previous report in January 2022 where they had stated there were 300 million crypto owners globally. In the Arab world biggest growth was seen in Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, and even Iraq.  More interesting is that if we compare the percentage of crypto owners in the Arab world between January 2022 and January 2023 in some countries the increase is exponential. For example in Jan 2022 2.38% of Moroccan population owned crypto, by January 2023 this number had increased to 4.9% an increase of more than 2% in one year. The same goes for Egypt, Tunisia, and Lebanon were the increase was also significant. Country Jan 2022 Crypto Ownership % Jan 2023 crypto ownership % Crypto Ownership Population 2023 ...

    On December 20 th , the Central Bank of Morocco represented by its governor Abdellatif Jouahri announced in Rabat Morocco that the draft crypto bill to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies is ready. The announcement was carried out at the press briefing following BAM's 4th and final quarterly meeting of 2022. Jouahri stressed that the full draft is ready to put in place a proper regulatory framework. Jouahri stated, "Discussions are to be held with all stakeholders, including the Moroccan Capital Markets Authority (AMMC) and the Insurance and Social Security Supervisory Authority (ACAPS),"  "We proceeded to a specific definition of the cryptocurrency and prepared a general public survey that details the specifics and use of this virtual currency in Morocco," he added. In June 2022, The Central Bank of Morocco, Bank Al Maghrib, announced during its second quarterly meeting that it would be introducing a cryptocurrency bill soon. Abdul Latif Al Ja...

  As per a recent Chainalysis blog report, MENA based crypto users received $566 billion worth of cryptocurrency in one year from July 2021 to June 2022. As per the news, this is a 48 percent increase from 2020-2021. In addition Turkey, Egypt and Morocco once again lead not only in MENA region but globally. All three countries are in the top thirty list of countries with most crypto savings, usage of crypto for remittance payments and permissive crypto regulations. These could be caused by these countries’ fiat currency devaluations and the huge remittance market in Egypt for example. This is why Egypt has become the fastest growing crypto market in 2022, while Turkey still remains the largest crypto market with its citizens receiving $192 billion. The report also notes the role of countries in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), and cites the example of Saudi Arabia which is the third largest crypto market in MENA, while UAE stands at fifth largest. This is especially true...

  Moroccan Arab singer, dubbed “Al Mualem”, meaning the teacher, Saad LAMajarred and Arab Super star Ragheb Alama will be holding the first ever Arab joint music concert in the metaverse. The two well renowned Arabic singers announced that they would be holding their upcoming concert in the metaverse in collaboration with famous Arab composer Michel Fadel. The concert will be held on the 20 th of October 2022, organized by Metaboundless. Metaboundless is a Web3.0 platform that connects creators and creator IP with fans to produce and scale creator content. MetaBoundless in partnership with Karma Return Opportunities, a regulated Web3.0 asset manager run helps creators generate attractive returns while preserving capital. Tickets will be sold in the form of NFTs (Non Fungible tokens). A tutorial on how to purchase the tickets is present on the Metaboundless website . Blockchain platform AlGorand is the exclusive blockchain partner for the event along with famous Arab Cartoo...

  The Central Bank of Morocco, Bank Al Maghrib, announced during its second quarterly in June 2022 that it will be introducing a cryptocurrency bill soon. Abdul Latif Al Jawhari, Governor of Central Bank of Morocco noted that the crypto CBDC committee created in February 2022 is putting in place an appropriate regulatory framework to combine innovation, tech and consumer protection. He also noted that the crypto bill is being benchmarked against global experiences with IMF and World Bank. He also noted that this regulatory framework will also update the legislation on the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. In March 2022, during a session with media He revealed that the Central Bank of Morocco had created a council headed by him to oversee the required regulations for both cryptocurrencies and CBDCs. He stated, “We are in discussions with the Central Banks of friendly nations such as Switzerland, Sweden, and France as well as international financial instit...