While Binance Pay with its partner in Bahrain is breaking records with new clients accepting crypto payments using the platform, in other places, like the UAE it is losing clients. The issue could be regulatory more than technical. So last week, Novotel Bahrain Al Dana Resort became the first hotel in the region to accept crypto payments via EazyPay & Binance Pay, while UAE’s Dubai Canadian University seems to have changed its stance and is no longer willing to accept crypto payments. This also seems to be the same situation with UAE Emirates Zone Investment Services which has also announced a partnership, but no longer mentions this prominently on their website or in their tweets. While it still mentions it in their news section. So back to Bahrain, Eazy Financial Services “EazyPay”, Bahrain’s payment services provider signed a payment services agreement with Novotel Bahrain Al Dana Resort, a luxury 4-star beachside hotel in Manama to offer crypto asset payments to its clients v

  UAE’s Canadian University in Dubai is accepting crypto payments through Binance. In a twitter post the Canadian University Dubai announced that it had collaborated with Binance Pay to offer crypto as a payment method. According to the post Binance Pay is a contactless secure crypto payment technology. Students of Canadian University Dubai can use Binance Pay to pay their fees.  According to the QS World University Rankings 2022, Canadian University Dubai is ranked first in Dubai. There are more than 70 supported cryptocurrencies on Binance Pay, including Cardano (ADA), Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and others. In February 2023 as well, Bahrain real estate developer Bin Faqeeh Real estate Investment Company announced that clients can buy apartments or houses using cryptocurrencies. Bin Faqeeh will be offering crypto payment services with Bahrain financial service provider EazyPay POS terminals, which is utilizing Binance Pay. In late January 2023, UAE Emirates Zone Invest

    As per Bloomberg Kraken, crypto exchange based out of Abu Dhabi UAE has closed its office  while Chainalysis lays off 4.8 percent of its global workforce, but continues to hire in the MENA region. Kraken has closed its   third office in less than a year. The first one was its headquarters in San Francisco, then Japan and now UAE. Kraken had received a full license to operate in the UAE in April 2022.   With these closures have come layoffs. Kraken announced back in November 2022 that it would be laying off 30 percent of its workforce, equivalent to 1,100 employees. As per Bloomberg, Kraken laid off the majority of its team in the MENA region, a total of 8 people. Benjamin Ampen, managing director for the region, will stay with the firm. On the Abu Dhabi market registry, Kraken is no longer listed as an active exchange. In addition the exchange has suspended support for transactions in the AED, but clients in the region will still be able to use other products and service

  In January 2023 Binance celebrated its official entrance into Bahrain. Bahrain’s crypto ecosystem has flourished with the entrance of Binance. Bahrain has witnessed a growth on all fronts, crypto exchange users, crypto payments, crypto jobs and competitive crypto offerings. Binance received its official license in October 2022.   Growth of crypto exchange users   The official license and launch of Binance in Bahrain has added to Binance’s crypto exchange users. Binance announced that it witnessed a 34% growth in institutional business clients in MENA in Q4 2022, the highest growth for a region where Binance operates, Nadeem Ladki, Executive Director Head of BD & Partnerships, Europe & MENA at Binance told LaraontheBlock, “While I cannot go into the specific growth in Bahrain, I can confirm that we have seen a growth in users since we officially launched in October 2022.”   Even Bahrain based CoinMENA; crypto broker also saw an increase in its user base in 2022

  HAYVN, regulated by UAE Abu Dhabi Global Markets, CIMA, and AUSTRAC has launched its first HAYVN 20 Index Fund a high risk fund that includes crypto assets. According to their website the fund will include the top 20 digital assets by market capitalization with a maximum weighting of 10% for any asset to increase diversification. It is a broad based index strategy with monthly rebalancing. The Fund will be managed by HAYVN Asset Management, a British Virgin Island Approved Manager, 100% subsidiary of the HAYVN group. The primary objective of the HAYVN 20 Segregated Portfolio is to deliver long term capital growth by investing 100% of fund assets within the crypto asset class. The fund is suitable for medium to long-term investors seeking diversified exposure to the broader crypto asset market, obtained through holding the top 20 crypto assets by market capitalisation. The fund aims to provide investors with enhanced returns relative to a pure market-cap weighted top 20 strateg

  About 65,000 Oman residents own cryptocurrencies, equivalent to 1.9 percent of the population. In a recent survey carried out by Oman based Souq Analyst, the largest investment community in Oman, it was found that 90% of crypto owners’ are between the ages of 18 and 44. Only 8% are over the age of 45. The survey results also noted that the majority owners are highly educated, with 66% of them holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. Souq Analyst offers stock market news and analysis, investing ideas, earnings calls, charts and portfolio analysis to its community members. In addition the community offers country specific insights on finance, cryptocurrencies, crowd funding & investing as well as access community events, workshop and webinars. According to the survey an impressive 97.9% of Omani adults have heard about cryptocurrency, indicating an increasing level of awareness. 55% of respondents report owning cryptocurrency and Bitcoin is the most popular followed by Ethereu

  MENA based Arts DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) and NFT and Web3 community with presence in UAE, has partnered with Ledger, a digital asset storage provider, to offer hardware crypto wallet solutions to its members.  Arts DAO is currently investing in blue-chip NFTs, supporting major corporations with their Web3 strategy, and backing great founders building in Web3. France-based Ledger, which employs more than 800 people has sold more than five million devices to customers in 200 different countries and is responsible for securing 20 percent of all crypto assets stored globally as of today. ‘100 Ledger NFTs,’ the first Ledger NFTs ever released, were part of a limited-edition collection created by Arts DAO to honor this groundbreaking partnership. Additionally, Arts DAO provided community members with branded ledgers, allowing NFT owners to claim a physical Ledger hard wallet. “Ledgers are a so-called ‘cold storage’ solution,” explains Danosch Zahedi, Co-Founder of Arts

  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 Tunisia (

  Egyptian Central bank has announced that it is currently studying the implementation of CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) which should offer a safer and more secure replacement to current cryptocurrencies and the risks associated with them while making use of digital economy. The Egyptian Central Bank in its 2021 financial stability report stated that it had created an internal and external committee which includes representatives from different Ministerial entities headed by the governor of the Central Bank to study the implementation of CBDCs in Egypt. It also noted that it is working with external counterparts to study the potential risks and benefits of CBDC implementations.  Cryptocurrency trading in Egypt is still not regulated and the Central Bank of Egypt has on several occasions mentioned the risk involved in dealing with cryptocurrencies and the fact that it is illegal in the country to do so. In September, the central bank of Egypt reiterated its warning against

    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

  stc Bahrain has become the first telecom operator in Bahrain to accept cryptocurrencies through its partnership with Eazy Financial Services, a leading Bahraini Payment Services provider specializing in POS and online payment gateway. EazyPay uses BinancePay and wallet to offer this service to more than 5000 POS terminals in Bahrain.  The collaboration with Eazy Financial Services is a strategic step from stc Bahrain towards expanding the payment options with the future of currency to address the increasing demand for flexible and easy-to-use crypto payments.  stc Bahrain CEO Nezar Banabeela, stated, “Rapid digitization across the globe is transforming all aspects of our lives, and payments are the most crucial element. From online shopping and streaming videos to money transfers, almost every digital activity relies on a payment system. We are incredibly proud to be the first telecom operator in Bahrain to accept cryptocurrency payments, a demonstration of our strong focus on advan