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UAE DP World’s Metaverse supports cost effective digital supply chain

UAE DP World’s Metaverse supports cost effective digital supply chain

At The World Economic Forum in Davos UAE’s DP World, a global end to end logistics provider announced that it would be utilizing the metaverse not for social networks, entertainment or enhancing customer experience but for increasing operational efficiency.

This is the first time that a metaverse solution is being utilized in the logistics industry and for operational and educational purposes.

The Metaverse, DPMETAWORLD, will aim to bring cutting edge virtual solutions to real world supply chain challenges driving both efficiency and transparency. Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group chairman and CEO of DP World announced this during the World Economic Forum Annual meeting at Davos.

The DPMETAWORLD platform will be launched at the end of 2022. Bin Sulayem said: “At DP World, we don’t respond to change – we think ahead and anticipate it. We know that the industries of the future will not be industries of the hand, but of the mind. So we have to deploy industry-leading solutions and technology to embrace this shift. Our expansion into the metaverse will not only enhance customer experience and operational efficiency, but also allow us to be more sustainable and resilient for the future. These are vital across all our global operations.”

In DP World Tweet they state, for us the metaverse is not a buzzword but a business tool. 

DP World’s operations, span six continents, 80 ports and various logistics operations, the company is uniquely positioned to help customers accelerate the flow of goods into its logistics networks.

Mike Bhaskaran, group chief operating officer of digital technology at DP World, said: “The DPMETAWORLD will allow us to provide highly flexible, cost-effective supply chain solutions. The real benefit for our customers is being able to see and understand the whole supply chain from end to end, with full visibility, and create alternate routes in case of logistics bottlenecks. We are very excited about providing these unique solutions to help resolve real-world supply constraints.”

DP World will explore metaverse applications for its services, including simulations of warehousing and terminal operations, in so-called digital twins ,3D virtual versions of physical assets,  as well as container and vessel inspections.

Other customer-focused applications include enhanced retail market access, with the potential to extend DP World’s 1600+ showrooms at the Dubai Traders Market to an unlimited number of customers through an immersive shopping experience.

DP World also plans to benefit from the metaverse through fully immersive virtual training for its staff. In 2021, its Port & Terminal Training Centre in Jebel Ali trained more than 10,000 employees, totaling close to 34,880 training days.

As per DP World, replacing physical training with an immersive alternative in the metaverse will reduce the time it takes to train operations teams by 50%, slashing costs as well as increasing efficiency and safety and saving over 17,000 training days just in the UAE.

DP World since 2018 has been at the forefront when it came to digitization efforts utilizing Blockchain. In 2019, DP World signed an MOU with Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the Digital Silk Road Project which is blockchain enabled.

DP World also worked with Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry,  for its Blockchain enabled Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network as the technology backbone to power its Global Supply Chain Platform Initiative.

Abu Dhabi UAE now has a crypto vending machine a first in the UAE

Abu Dhabi UAE now has a crypto vending machine a first in the UAE

The Abu Dhabi Global Market has launched a crypto vending machine in the free zone area. Users can insert cash or credit card and exchange them for Bitcoin or other crypto currencies. Located in the Galleria Mall, on Al Maryah Island next to ADGM. 

As per an article in the National, ADGM stated, ” the Kiosk withdrawal is logged via the internet and the puchsed Bitcoins are added to the customer’s virtual currency wallet for use in future transactions.” 

The crypto Kiosk or vending machine is an initiative of World Credit savings a brokerage firm regulated by the FSRA ( Financial Services Regulatory Authority) at ADGM. 

This is a big thing given that the last Crypto ATM set up in Dubai was decommissioned in 2019. It was a Bitcoin ATM in the Rixos Premium hotel. 

In 2019 there was  only one Bitcoin ATM in existence in the GCC in Bahrain.  In a Linkedin Post shared by the CEO of Bahrain Fintech bay Khalid Saad states, ” We have the only live Crypto ATM in the MENA region in Bahrain Fintech Bay. The Crypto ATM is run by Basket and backed by Kuwait entrepreneur Jamal Al Mutawa.” He adds, ” Basket is currently testing their solution under the Central Bank of Bahrain’s regulatory sandbox. this is a great addition to Bahrain’s growing crypto ecosystem.” Later on nothing came out of it. 

Binance enables Dubai Hotel with crypto payment gateway

Binance enables Dubai Hotel with crypto payment gateway

In a recent article Binance announced that it had enabled a Dubai Hotel to offer crypto payment facilities. The hotel in question is the Manor by JA resorts located in Al Furjan. As per the article the The Manor hotel is settling payments in BNB (Binance coin), Bitcoin and Ethereum through Binance crypto to crypto payment gateway.

As per Mohammed Hanif Al Qassim, Managing Partner of The Manor Hotel, “Virtual assets go in line with The Manor’s vision for sustainability and digital transformation, considering its position among top eco-friendly boutique hotels in Dubai.”

Richard Teng, Regional Head of MENA at the crypto-platform, “Binance has been actively engaging established local businesses and institutions to further increase the adoption of crypto for our users and the crypto community as a whole. Our partnerships with leading, innovative businesses, such as JA are in line with our vision to enhance crypto adoption across the region.”

Prior to this Property developers and Hotel managers such as DAMAC also announced they would be accepting crypto payments. UAE DAMAC Properties is accepting crypto payments either Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Even UAE Property firm Your place partnered with Utrust, a cryptocurrency payment solution designed to modernize the finance and payments industry offers clients the ability to pay for properties in Dubai UAE using cryptocurrencies.

UAE Minister of AI and Digital Economy looks at converging Metaverse, Blockchain, and AI

UAE Minister of AI and Digital Economy looks at converging Metaverse, Blockchain, and AI

During the World Economic Forum in Davos, CoinDesk carried out an interview with UAE Minister Omar Sultan AlOlama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work.

Some big takeaways from his interview that I found interesting were the following. First he noted that he was pleased to see more and more governments embracing crypto and finding use cases for it. He also noted that Blockchain had become more popular and as he stated, “This is good for everyone because you can build a more trust based society that will take us into Web3.0”

He also made a comment that while most governments just talk about AI (Artificial Intelligence), the UAE is actually walking the talk. He states, “The UAE is taking a proactive role to regulate and deploy AI in environments and is working to attract AI startups.” He believes given the diversity in UAE demographics AI systems developed in UAE will be less biased towards specific ethnicities, genders, etc.. He also states that the UAE with its cutting edge infrastructure and its diverse economic sectors has a volume of data that could create a globally first AI Company from UAE.

According to Olama, the digital economics will be enabled by AI and Blockchain.

When asked if UAE was seeking to become a crypto hub, he stated that it was already a crypto hub in the region and one of the few leading crypto hubs globally. He noted, “ We need to do what people want and for some reasons people have chosen to embark on a crypto journey, some have invested their life savings in crypto. Today crypto is high risk but eventually it will mature, so as governments we either take a back seat or we become leaders. We need to ensure there is no money laundering, no pump and dump trading schemes. Yet given that this market is nascent there will be mistakes and we need to inform public as much as possible to the risks, ensure no illegal activity is happening.”

Olama believes that the biggest aim is to attract crypto talent which is among the best globally because they are building and securing Web3, building metaverse, payment gateways, and other solutions. UAE wants to enable them and create the right environment for them. He notes how both Polygon Blockchain and Binance crypto exchange have relocated to UAE.

He believes that the regulatory environment in UAE, is one where the regulator views companies and entities as innocent until proven guilty, ensuring the right checks and balances while being agile and nimble.

In his final remark, he notes that at Davos, ” I am  interested in seeing how the metaverse converges with Blockchain and AI and how this will look and use that to launch the right strategies and programs back in the UAE.”

Blockchain Expert Don Tapscott speaking at Blockchain Revolution Summit in Qatar

Blockchain Expert Don Tapscott speaking at Blockchain Revolution Summit in Qatar

Qatar will witness a blockchain revolution summit on the 26th of May 2022 at St. Regis Doha Qatar, with the participation of Dr. Don Tapscott, Executive Chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute, and well known as a leading Blockchain expert.

The summit is being organized by the Blockchain Research Institute Middle East, the first regional branch of Blockchain Research Institute based out of Qatar. The event is set to discuss opportunities to create industry solution frameworks and guidelines leveraging blockchain technologies to secure data, reduce costs and improve timelines.

The interesting highlights of this summit are the speakers and sponsors. Aside from Don Tapscott, speakers include Fadi Nasser, Chief Commercial Officer of Meeza Qatar. Meeza is also sponsoring the event. Nebil Ben Aissa, Chief Executive officer for Nexxo, a private equity investment network dedicated to FinTech is also participating.

In addition Khalid Al Ansari a Doctor of Law (JD) and a Ph.D. candidate in Islamic Finance and Economy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar currently working on finalizing his Ph.D. dissertation in digital economy and blockchain, is also participating as a speaker.  

While both, Shahid A Syed, Head of Transaction Banking & Innovation Dukhan Bank and Mr. Gudni Stiholt Adalsteinsson Acting CEO Doha Bank & Chief Treasury & Investment Officer are also participating as speakers with Doha Bank sponsoring as well.

Dr. Ammar Darwish Al-Obaidani President of the Oman Blockchain Club (2017-2019) is also participating. Since 2019, he has been leading a government company that develops customized integrated digital solutions as a CEO (Frontier Technology LLC).

The significance lies in the level of participants which including the banking and academic sector as well as investors.

This summit comes at a significant time in Qatar. In April for example Qatar Airways announced  it has stepped into the metaverse with the launch of Qverse a Virtual reality experience for visitors on its website with MetaHuman cabin crew, called Sama giving virtual tours. Sama’s name originates from Arabic and translates to ‘sky’. She is a high fidelity digital human brought to life using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, real-time 3D creation tool that’s used by leading game makers. Neutral Digital developed the VR experience for Qatar airways.

In addition Ooreedo Qatar, mobile telecom group, will be holding its EA Sports FIFA22 Champions Cup being entirely broadcasted in the metaverse and will offer exclusive NFT tokens. The tournament is taking place on May May 24, 25, and 28 at Aspire Ladies Sports Hall in Doha in front of e-Sports enthusiasts who will get the chance to see prominent gamers compete for the title.

Major FIFA and Qatari influencers will also attend the tournament, in addition to a plethora of entertainment and activities to ensure an unforgettable night. Ooredoo Nation – Gamers’ Land, the company’s own eSports brand, will also offer a selection of exclusive non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

“We are proud and excited to be venturing into the world of Web 3.0 technologies with this latest eSports development, which aligns perfectly with our strategic commitment to investment in innovation,” said Nasser bin Hamad bin Nasser Al Thani, Chief Commercial Officer at Ooredoo.

“We see eSports as one of the key areas of focus in this digital era, and an area in which we can explore the many opportunities to offer our customers an unrivalled experience.”

This comes after FIFA2022 announced that crypto.com will be sponsoring and AlGorand Blockchain will be a partner. It also comes after CoinMENA, crypto exchange announced it is serving clients in Qatar which prompted a reply from Qatar Central Bank noting that it has not licensed any crypto exchanges in Qatar and will take legal actions against any crypto exchange which claims to be operating with a license in Qatar. When questioned by LaraontheBlock Dina Semaan noted, “ People took this out of context, we never said we were licensed or regulated in Qatar, we said we now offer our services to Qatar, which could be from any location in the world and in this case from our licensed entity in Bahrain.” She added, “We can support all GCC countries and other MENA countries upon approval from Central Bank of Bahrain.”

WadZPay Blockchain payments provider to list on UAE Crypto Exchange soon

WadZPay Blockchain payments provider to list on UAE Crypto Exchange soon

WadzPay will list its token on a Middle East crypto asset Exchange soon, according to its Group CEO. In a tweet WadzPay CEO Anish Jain states “We will also expand presence to regional exchanges in UAE, India, Africa and South America.”

The WadzPay ecosystem provides infrastructure for emerging CBDC and Stable coin technologies allowing governments and institutions to sandbox or commercialize programs both at a domestic or international level.

WadzPay is building an interoperable and agnostic blockchain-based payments ecosystem. The company was founded in 2018 in Singapore and is currently operating in South East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and Africa. As per their website the company saw the potential for CBDC and Digital Assets leading the next revolution in the payments industry: by enabling faster payments, improvements in security, cost efficiency with optionality.

They claim to be working with large international payment companies, banks and other large global companies to enable digital asset-based transaction processing and settlement. WadzPay is currently present in Dubai UAE.

WadzPay recently took part in Commercial Bank of Dubai’s Innovation Challenge at DIFC FinTech Hive. Where they presented their digital wallet solution and were shortlisted in the Top 10 Companies, from a field of 100. In the final round WadzPay together with Commercial Bank of Dubai’s team will Pitch their solution to  their Executive Council.

UAE Based Cheeze Blockchain NFT photography app gets NetFlix Co-Founder on Board

UAE Based Cheeze Blockchain NFT photography app gets NetFlix Co-Founder on Board

Cheeze, rooted in the UAE, welcomes Ex Netflix Co-Founder Marc Randolph to its board of Directors. This comes after the completion of Cheeze’s second seed round where Randolph continued his investment.

As quoted on Forbes Randolph stated, “I am very excited about joining the Cheeze, Inc. board. The team Simon (Hudson, Cheeze CEO and Founder) is building is really impressive, and I am excited to see the progress they make,” Randolph said.

In March 2021, Cheeze Blockchain NFT photo application teamed up with UAE Based SRG Holding to develop minting studio for NFTs. Cheeze partnered with UAE based property developer to offer its engineering team a new base to develop and launch a new minting studio for NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Cheeze has partnered with Mohamed AlRafi, Founder of SRG Holding in the UAE, to start work on creating an engineering headquarters in Dubai and will continue to hire engineers over the coming months.

Cheeze was established in Silicon Valley in 2018. “Dubai is the perfect base to for a tech firm’s engineering team, with its record-breaking internet speed, advanced knowledge of Blockchain technology and contemporary working environments. AlRafi, who owns and operates a number of hugely successful businesses both globally and in Dubai, is now expanding his portfolio into the tech space by partnering with Hudson and investing in his company Cheeze,” a statement said. 

The Cheeze app will allow people to mint their photos into what are called NFTs, giving users the ability to trade and sell them on the blockchain. With a wide target demographic of photographers, collectors and consumers, the concept has been bolstered by the recent boom in the NFT space with sellers such as Beeple and 3Lau making millions of dollars.

The platform brings photography to the blockchain through the launch of NFT photo galleries. It enables anyone to purchase a photo gallery on its platform and lease out the space to photographers who want to showcase their collections. Cheeze is built on Flow Blockchain, where there are no gas fee charges for minting NFTs.

“Simon and his team have also shown that they are focused on providing true utility to people looking to bring their work to Web 3.0, and in an NFT environment where style seems to trump substance, this is a recipe for long term success, I’m very excited to be a part of this adventure and have a front-row seat as Cheeze figures out what this new world of Web 3.0 can provide.” added Randolph

BSV Blockchain to return Blockchain to Satoshi’s vision across MENA and the globe

BSV Blockchain to return Blockchain to Satoshi’s vision across MENA and the globe

BSV Global Blockchain Convention which commenced today in Dubai UAE is aiming to bring Blockchain back to Satoshi’s true vision and make it useful efficient and good.

Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President of BSV Blockchain, told attendees in his opening speech, “In the world today we are seeing too many coins, more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarket. We are seeing algorithmic stablecoins crash like in the case of Luna from Terra, with many of these coins being connected to crime. This is not the world I entered into when I started in Blockchain. Today we are here to start a conversation around building a world of Blockchain that is better. Build a world where Satoshi’s vision for BSV original protocol, one of P2P electronic payment transactions, and a data blockchain infrastructure useful for everyone. We are here to make the blockchain useful again.”

He goes on to state that the Satoshi vision was one of efficiency, honesty, a world of good. Bitcoin was created to address problems and issue a powerful data code and develop the internet protocol where it natively would send payments between devices without an intermediary.

Satoshi didn’t call this a blockchain, he called it a distributed time stamp server publishing transactions time stamped in a distributed manner.

Nguyen notes that BSV has demolished prior assumptions and hit 20 million transactions in April 2022, with blocks of 4GB of data. BSV is also the only blockchain that has the capacity to store NFTs on chain and yet he states this remains unmentioned unrecognized by others.

Nguyen believes that Blockchain and crypto should become more than speculative investing. He adds the world of scaling is currently not happening on Bitcoin because it is not being used for daily payments as this would create network congestion given that Bitcoin platform can only carry out 3-7 transactions per second, which is nowhere near the capacity of Visa or MasterCard that can carry out 50,000 transactions per second.

He explains, “At BSV Blockchain we have demonstrated 100,000 transactions per second, we have scaled and our network capacity is 4 GB per block which is 4000 times more than the capacity of the Bitcoin network. In April we demonstrated 2.4 million individual Bitcoin transactions in a single Block and this was Satoshi’s original design for Bitcoin. This is why Satoshi develop OP_PUSHDATA4, allowing users to send gigabytes of data in a transaction working to push to 4.3 GB of data in a single Bitcoin transaction.”

Scaling the blockchain is necessary to make it useful and inexpensive. The BTC network according to Nguyen is congested and transaction costs are high and unreliable, anywhere between 70 cents to 30 USD. Ethereum is not that better with average costs ranging from 3 USD to 70 USD and currently standing at 24 USD. This means minting an NFT on Ethereum costs 80 USD. On BSV it costs 1/100th to 1/20th of a cent, almost free. The goal is to get that number down to 1/1,000th of a cent  This is the way Satoshi had designed it adds Nguyen.

He explains, “Satoshi wanted people to be able to send small casual transactions over the internet, and that is why we are working with IPV6 internet protocol. The combination will create something formidable.”

In the MENA region BSV has already started its journey. Muhammad Salman Anjum Head of BSV Hub for MENA & South Asia stated, “We have launched our BSV MENA hub out of Dubai UAE and are developing partnerships with academia, governmental entities, the private sector, developers as well as regulators to push forward the adoption of Blockchain and BSV.”

BSV is working with several entities in the UAE including the Ministry of Energy, University of Sharjah, and UAE Department of Community, Dubai Police and others to build the research and development as well as knowledge base.

BSV MENA will also be promoting the launch of Women ambassadors in the upcoming months to encourage more women to enter the blockchain ecosystem.

While Ahmed Yousif, Lead of Government Initiative Middle East BSV Blockchain discussed the work BSV is doing with governments in MENA and how this relates to Smart Cities.

As he stated, “The MENA governments have a huge interest in use cases where blockchain can solve problems and the BSV task force is working with governments in KSA on Blockchain use cases for smart cities and Saudi green initiative. Bahrain government is also working on use cases in government on the infrastructure side.”

He gives an example of a use case in KSA where a Saudi diplomatic gated community, will be utilizing NFTs ( Non Fungible Tokens) in Riyadh KSA to encourage its residents to participate in green initiatives as part of the community.

He notes that the BSV journey in the region is just starting but BSV is here to disrupt the way we share data.

Qatar opens its doors to CoinMENA Crypto exchange as a regulated exchange

Qatar opens its doors to CoinMENA Crypto exchange as a regulated exchange

CoinMENA Chief Operating Officer Dina Semaan announced today on twitter that CoinMENA crypto exchange is now serving clients in Qatar. This would be the first crypto exchange to officially announce that it is serving clients in Qatar. As per her tweet, “Starting from today, CoinMENA services are now being offered in Qatar, making us the first regulated crypto exchange to be offering services in Qatar.” She adds with this expansion we now offer CoinMENA services in six Arab countries, and we continue to achieve our goals of offering the simplest and easiest method for trading crypto.” This comes after Qatar’s FIFA 2022 took on sponsors such as Crypto.com, one of the international crypto exchanges globally. It also comes after FIFA signed up AlGorand Blockchain as a sponsor and partner for their digitization plans in the sports and entertainment sector. CoinMENA was first regulated in Bahrain, and then sought regulation in UAE, and offers its services in KSA, Kuwait, Oman, and now Qatar as a regulated entity. In the press release CoinMENA confirms that it has become the first regional digital assets exchange to offer its services in Qatar, meaning that users across the Gulf state can now easily and safely invest in cryptocurrencies for the first time. Qatari citizens and residents can open accounts with CoinMENA and have access to all the features the platform has to offer, including connecting their bank accounts to their CoinMENA wallets, enabling them to deposit and withdraw funds directly and safely within minutes. Commenting in a joint statement, CoinMENA Co-Founders Dina Sam’an and Talal Tabbaa said: “We are delighted to become the first crypto exchange to offer our services in Qatar. Investors have been asking about our plans to enter the country for some time now, so this news represents a major milestone on our long-term geographic market expansion plans.” The Bahrain-headquartered firm recently became the first onshore licensed crypto exchange to introduce limit trading, enabling the CoinMENA users to set the price at which they wish to buy and sell crypto. Users in Qatar will also be able to utilize the recently added features including withdrawing USDT via the TRON network for lower fees, and earning bonus rewards when they invite their friends through CoinMENA’s referral program. “CoinMENA’s entry into Qatar is a huge step on our journey to becoming the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s preferred crypto financial services company,” said Sam’an. “Our team is constantly striving to onboard new countries and introduces new features to a wider audience.” “We are immensely proud of everything we have achieved during our first year of operations,” Tabbaa added. “However, we still have a lot to achieve, which is why we will continue to work tirelessly to deliver the best possible experience for our ever-expanding user base.”

Investing in Properties in Lebanon now through Fractional NFTs

Investing in Properties in Lebanon now through Fractional NFTs

Three villas in Lebanon can now be bought using fractional NFTs ( Non Fungible Tokens). Utilizing Aqarchain which is the first crowdfunding fractional NFT investment platform for properties globally, investors of all income levels can own a piece of property in Lebanon and make a return on investment by receiving dividends from rent and sales.

Aqarchain.io has listed Villa Ekolu valued at 640,000 USD divided into 3,746 shares and so far 10.73 percent has been subscribed to it. Aqarchain is offering 7 percent guaranteed Return on Investment.

There are two other villas as well Villa Ekahi valued at 525,000 USD and Villa Hauoli valued at 415,000 USD.

This is the first time property in Lebanon has been tokenized as NFTs and listed.

Aqarchain,  a blockchain powered real estate asset tokenization platform, which aims to create a decentralized ecosystem where investment in real estate is as easy as investing in shares on the stock market, has now launched a NFT marketplace.

Aqarchain mints real estate NFT and fractionalizes it. The company has developed the world’s First Decentralized Real Estate NFT marketplace with a MetaVerse.