Two blockchain announcements have come out of Qatar demonstrating that the Gulf country is starting to utilize and grow DLT (Distributed Ledger Technologies) and Blockchain.  The first is the piloting of digital signatures and certificates to be validated on Qatar’s national blockchain network and the second is the inclusion of DLT in Qatar’s Central Bank Fintech strategy.

This comes after Qatar announced its Blockchain blueprint in 2022 led by the Communications Regulatory Authority.

Qatar’s Genesis Technologies launched the imdaat pilot, a decentralized signature and certificate issuance platform during AlFikra national entrepreneurship competition an initiative of Qatar Development Bank and Qatar University.

As per the LinkedIn post by Genesis Co-Founder Mazen El Masri, “Over 130 certificates were issued, signed, and registered on Genesis blockchain network. Our team at Genesis Technologies LLC is happy and proud to support such national initiatives. The pilot was successful and a start of a long journey to have all digital signatures and certificates registered and validated on a national blockchain network.”

Genesis is the brain child of two professors at Qatar university who came together to build a blockchain network from scratch that would not only be utilized as a ledger but also as a super computer. They named it Maxya blockchain which is built on consensus mechanism “Proof of Useful Work”. The consensus mechanism creates added value by solving optimization problems for business.

The project started with a $2.6 million fund for an applied research program from Qatar National Research Fund, from which the launched MaxYa test net based on was launched and is being tested in Qatar.

But that was not the only Blockchain news from Qatar. The Central Bank of Qatar announced its Fintech strategy which includes the implementation of DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) as part of its corporate enablement tools.

As per the Fintech strategy, the Central Bank of Qatar will be the focal point for regulations that include emerging technologies such as cloud computing, AI, an DLT. They will also be launching an enhanced regulatory sandbox to test the innovative technologies.