The UAE Central Bank announced on Sunday 12 th of February 2023 its nine initiatives for what it calls its financial infrastructure transformation program, the FIT program that will enable the Central Bank of the UAE to be among the top central Banks globally. One of the nine initiatives is the launch of a CBDC for internal and cross border payments, but where is the 10 th , the one that will actually put the UAE on the map as the digital payment hub. Where is the UAE’s Central Bank digital asset payment and remittance regulation or rulebook? So the UAE Central Bank has finally openly stated that it will be launching a CBDC ( Central Bank Digital Currency) for not only cross border payments but also UAE internal national payments. As per the release, the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) would be utilized for cross-border payments and domestic usage in order to address the problems and inefficiency of cross-border payments and help drive innovation for domestic payments respect

  KSA born Nuqtah NFT marketplace has signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Saudi Telecom group (STC) to tokenize photographs from stc’s Sarha project and mint them in the form of non-fungible assets exclusively on the Nuqtah NFT marketplace. As per the blog, STC is committed to delivering the best customers experience through its advanced technology and innovative solutions. Sarha, the world's first content-generating camel, is set to take its viewers on a journey of discovery. The camel travelled around Saudi Arabia in tandem with the most skilled photographers, capturing stunning images and videos that will be shared with the world. Sarha's journey will take its viewers further than ever before with the broadest network and widest coverage. This unique project provided by stc  has be used to create amazing experiences for people all over the world. As such Nuqtah and stc have come together to create a unique collaboration that will bring the world of photo

  Saudi Aramco has signed a memorandum of agreement with Data Gumbo, a US based Blockchain technology company which developed a blockchain as a service platform to streamline smart contracts management for industrial customers. The agreement between Saudi Aramco and Data Gumbo is for Blockchain collaboration over a three year term. This is not the first time Saudi Aramco has dealt with Data Gumbo. In August 2022, Saudi Aramco’s investment arm Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures made its fourth investment in Data Gumbo series C round where Data Gumbo raised $4million. The round was led by Saudi Aramco Ventures and Equinor, Norway’s energy operator. As per the Data Gumbo blog post, “ Data Gumbo is proud to announce that on 8 February, 2023 we entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Saudi Aramco for Blockchain Collaboration.   The agreement has a 3 year term. We are honored by the opportunity to deepen our collaboration and look forward to several transformational projects in

  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

  During Saudi’s leading tech event LEAP 2023, being held between February 7th-9th in Riyadh KSA, IR4LAB, a Saudi-based company specialized in disruptive technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence., and SGS (Saudi Ground Services), jointly announced the implementation of DocCerts Blockchain management solution for all training related digital documents and ground service equipment licenses issued by SGS at 28 Saudi Arabian airports where SGS provides ground services. The Blockchain enabled solution will allow SGS to issue over 10,000 digital documents annually including licenses. Document verification is one of the major challenges internationally. DocCerts is a solution developed to solve these issues by utilizing the power of Blockchain Technology. Eng. Ayman Alghamdi, Vice President of Human Resources , at SGS, said: “We are very pleased to be announcing this groundbreaking solution at LEAP 2023. This is a historical moment and it’s the first initiative of its kin

    Blockchain UAE Trade Connect platform, the UAE’s first trade finance platform to combat fraud has added United Arab Bank (UAB) as its 11 th bank on its platform. UTC, the fintech blockchain platform of e& enterprise, is the UAE's first commercialized solution to combat fraud in the trade finance space built on advanced technologies, namely blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI). UTC is a collaborative project of the banking industry and co-created with e& enterprise. UAE Trade Connect is a cloud-native solution that detects suspicious transactions, prevents fraud and duplication, and supports a wide range of trade-related documents that is validated and inspected in real time. Shirish Bhide, Chief Executive Officer at United Arab Bank, stated, “We wholeheartedly support UTC's mission of driving digital transformation and reducing fraud risks. This strategic partnership aligns with UAB's mission to accelerate growth through digitization and to build

  Recently Recap, a crypto tracking and capital gains solution provider, published its report under the title ‘Which Cities are leading the way in cryptocurrency’.   50 cities were put in the report. As per the report Recap scored these cities based on the following criteria. The first was quality of life score; personally I don’t see how crypto is related to quality of life. For me the most popular crypto enthusiasts and users are usually from cities and countries which have the most unbanked population or live in countries where the financial and economic situation is not that impressive. Examples include Morocco, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and others, all by the way not even mentioned in the report. Their second criterion was crypto specific events! Wow this was a first for me, so if a city carries out a lot of crypto events then automatically it becomes a city leading the way in cryptocurrency. This was actually one of the biggest reasons Kuwait was put on the list, coming in at 1

  The Ultra-Abu Dhabi, the premier EDM music festival taking place on March 4 th and 5 th 2023 will be powered by NFT (Non fungible token) tickets developed by BNB Chain, smart contract blockchain and   Fellaz, a Web3 entertainment ecosystem. The cutting edge ticketing solution powered by BNB Chain will verify the authenticity of tickets, ensuring legitimacy. The collaboration will allow for a more seamless and secure ticketing experience for Ultra Abu Dhabi fans using NFT ticketing while providing a new blueprint for Web3 fan engagement specializing in the music industry. BNB Chain was originally initiated by Binance but has since grown to become a community-driven, permissionless, and decentralized blockchain ecosystem. Binance is now  one of the many contributors operating within the BNB Chain ecosystem rather than some kind of dominant force wielding unilateral power over it.  Alvin Kan, Director of Growth and Ops at BNB Chain said, “The new NFT ticketing solution will allow

    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

  UAE Abu Dhabi University (ADU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 5ire, a fifth generation blockchain ecosystem, to strengthen blockchain education, research and entrepreneurship. both parties will identify and support compelling projects on blockchain technology, with a specific focus on sustainability and accessibility. As part of its commitment to expand the course offerings, ADU will work closely with 5ire to build a comprehensive framework that will provide educational opportunities for students, including courses and workshops focused on blockchain technology and its applications. In addition, 5ire will provide financial sponsorship for ADU’s UAE national students, who have met the criteria and are interested in obtaining professional certifications or pursuing degrees focused on blockchain courses. The criteria include but are not limited to academic performance, financial need and demonstrated interest in blockchain technology.   Furthermore, the partnershi

    Alea Global Group will be holding their edition of Alea Sessions in Riyadh KSA. The one day gathering under the theme ‘The New Opportunities in Investment in the New Saudi Arabia’ will gather 100 of the GCC and MENA region’s top family offices. The event will include a session on Blockchain in Trade Finance. Alea Global Group is a conglomerate single family business formed in 1998 in the State of Kuwait owned by a member of Al Duaij family. The one day event will discuss private debts and CLOs, trade finance, mezzanine debt, open banking, micro and macro banking environments, and Saudi Arabia’s unicorns. The Alea Sessions is a series of irregular but responsive events held by Alea Group Group which are held when there is a need to address important topics that need to be addressed and which our followers would like to talk about. These events are usually shorter than their Family Office Summits, with a more focused programme. They may occur anywhere in the world, and also o

  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

  Recently a press release came out discussing the launch of the Gulf Crypto bank which is espoused to be an integrated banking system for both fiat currencies and digital currencies. As per the release users can withdraw, deposit, swap, do external and internal transfers immediately, securely and with minimal fees. Users will also be provided with a visa or mastercard that can be used at any ATM or online. Another noteworthy feature is the ability to withdraw  crypto assets to any external wallet by creating a wallet inside your bank account.  The Bank will also offer personal and corporate loans based on the Islamic laws. They state that they are participating in the Fintech Crypto Summit in Bahrain as a diamond sponsor and are seeking investment for their coin, GulfCoin. The only summit being mentioned in Bahrain on February 15 th is the Fintech and Crypto Summit. Their website doesn’t mention any speakers or sponsors and the event is supposedly only two weeks away! Looking

  UAE based International Financial Centre (DIFC), has launched its “DIFC Metaverse Platform” and the first phase is a metaverse accelerator program where it will choose 50 metaverse projects to help develop the metaverse sector in UAE. The platform is part of a comprehensive strategy being developed by Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) to accelerate Dubai’s status as a global metaverse leader. The DIFC Metaverse Platform is aligned with the Dubai Metaverse Strategy, which aims to add $4 billion to Dubai's GDP, support 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030 and attract 1,000 companies specialized in blockchain and metaverse technologies. The platform also supports the objective of the recently launched Dubai Economic Agenda D33 to generate economic value worth AED100 billion from digital transformation annually. The Metaverse Accelerator Program, the first initiative to be launched under the umbrella of the platform, will start accepting applications this month. In the coming

  UAE based Venom Ventures Fund, a Web3 and blockchain innovation fund managed by Abu Dhabi-based investment fund manager Iceberg Capital Limited, has invested $5 million in Everscale, a premier blockchain platform that aims to solve the scalability issues bogging down the Web3 industry. The $5 million will be used by Everscale to expand its development teams and boost the number of projects. Everscale has been diligently working on expanding its reach and integrating its technology solutions in Asian countries over the past two years, while also building a strong community. Its dynamic sharding technology enables it to efficiently adapt to varying workloads, thus making it an easy and practical option for creating large-scale Web3 and other types of applications. Venom Ventures Fund Chairman Peter Knez, ex-CIO of BlackRock, said, “For us, this is a strategic investment aimed at the technological development of projects and teams around technologies that we focus on and actively

    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. Binance Co-Founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao tweeted about Bin Faqeeh Real Estate Company accepting Crypto Payments via Binance Pay through Eazy Financial Services. EazyPay and Binance had signed a partnership in Q4 2022 to offer crypto payment services to EazyPay’s 5000 plus POS terminals. Prior to this Bahrain CoinMENA crypto broker partnered with Carlton Real Estate, a Bahrain-based real estate agency, allowing clients to buy real estate property using crypto assets. Under the partnership, Carlton real estate would accept stablecoins like USDT and USDC. The UAE as well has been offering clients the ability to pay for real estate in cryptocurrencies. In May 2022 UAE Properties developer Nakheel and Abu Dhabi base