Dubai and the bigger UAE have lengthy been touted as rising tech and innovation hubs, offering entry factors into Asia and Center Japanese markets. With exponential developmental growth in the past decades, Dubai is now considered one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the world.
It could then not be stunning for some to take a position that the nation might additionally stand up as one of many leaders within the cryptocurrency area. In a recent interview, Bittrex Global CEO Stephen Stonberg opined that Dubai is well-poised to capitalize from the growing cryptocurrency market in the area, due to regulatory proactiveness in the direction of the acceptance of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
Talking to Bloomberg about the moves made by Dubai and UAE in the past, to bolster this progress, the CEO of the digital property change said,
“[They are] doing all the right things and they’re going to attract a lot of regional projects…t’s an important place to arrange your token undertaking, or run a cryptocurrency change.”
According to him, this is in part, due to the region’s status as “tax haven.” Because of sprawling revenues from its huge oil business, Dubai follows a largely tax-free coverage, leading many businesses and skilled expats to set up shop in the Middle Eastern city.
Cryptocurrencies may also act as a gateway for a lot of of those migrant employees to ship remittance funds again to their residence nations, who otherwise face high transaction fees.
For the reason that UAE Securities Change Fee handed a law final 12 months requiring crypto asset service suppliers to register with the company, this gateway has started to become a reality for many. They’re additionally required to adjust to a variety of anti-money laundering, cybersecurity, and knowledge safety legal guidelines.
As UAE moves closer to opening licensed cryptocurrency exchanges, six companies have qualified under the regulatory requirements, with two reaching the first stages of going live. Furthermore in Could, an settlement was signed between the SEC and Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority to help the regulation, offering and trading of crypto assets within the free zone.
A blockchain-based change for sugar buying and selling was additionally opened within the “free-zone” final 12 months, along with a Bitcoin ETF featuring on the Nasdaq Dubai exchange in June. The fund listed by 3iQ Corp, Canada’s largest digital asset funding fund supervisor, was the first of its kind in the Middle East. This opened up the area for large-scale BTC investments.
Revealing Bittrex’s expectations to expand its presence and client base in the region, Stonberg predicted that “Dubai goes to do fantastically effectively.” Earlier in May, Dubai had launched its own public-blockchain-based cryptocurrency DubaiCoin.
It gained 1000% in valuation in 24 hours, leading to authorities revealing it to be an unofficial phishing scam that had never been approved.
The Dubai Monetary Providers Regulatory Authority had earlier raised alarms too on the size of crypto scamming within the nation, which has reportedly cost its residents millions of dollars. The DFSA is nevertheless trying to introduce two crypto-related session papers as a part of its marketing strategy in 2021. It will reportedly expand the agency’s regulation of digital asset issuers and associated trading platforms.
