R3 Blockchain is establishing itself more in the GCC and MENA region, with Bryan D’Souza announcing his move to Abu Dhabi as Business Development and Partnerships Manager in the Middle East.

As D’Souza noted on Linkedin, “I’m delighted to finally announce my move to Abu Dhabi with R3, where I will lead Business Development and Partnerships in the Middle East. After extensive travel between London and the GCC, the prospect of making Abu Dhabi my home is thrilling as I embark on this exciting new chapter.

He adds that he is excited to collaborate with GCC’s thriving financial services ecosystem. According to D’Souza, the GCC stands out as a forward-thinking hub of progress due to its dynamic blend of tradition and innovation, as well as a remarkable ability to execute on transformation.

He will be working to flourish digital economies and align with national visions of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Jordan, helping these countries to realize their financial sector developments including banking and capital markets transformation.

R3 will be working with Central banks, FMIs, commercial banks, FinTech, providing practical groundbreaking solutions for digital assets tokenization and regulated digital currencies, including CBDCs.

Last month Bryan D’Souza discussed his fruitful visit to Kuwait.

R3 has been a strong proponent in the Middle East and GCC region working with governments and enterprise on several projects, most prominently the CBDC projects in Saudi Arabia and UAE.

In addition the Qatar Financial Centre Authority and R3 signed an MOU to develop and grow Qatar’s fintech industry using technologies such as DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) back in April 2023.

D’Souza stated after his visit to Kuwait, “I am thrilled to have experienced my first trip to Kuwait over the last couple of days as part of a mini GCC tour. I am grateful for the warm welcome from our great partners and potential clients. The hospitality of the Kuwaiti people left a lasting impression; warm, friendly, and eager to collaborate.”

He added, “Exciting opportunities ahead and looking forward to returning back to Kuwait soon!”

IOTA DLT Foundation announced that it has been registered as the first foundation under the DLT Foundations Regulations at ADGM ( Abu Dhabi Global Markets. As per their blog, his landmark achievement positions IOTA at the forefront of digital and real-world convergence in the financial sector in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region and globally.

The IOTA Ecosystem DLT Foundation will be seeded with over $100 million in IOTA tokens, to be vested over the next four years. This funding is earmarked for nurturing the IOTA ecosystem and accelerating the growth of the IOTA protocol. In line with its community-driven ethos, the IOTA Ecosystem DLT Foundation will foster valuable partnerships in the region to advance the adoption of IOTA and its staging network Shimmer, across various sectors.

As per the blog, this will include collaboration with institutional investors, governments, and academic institutions for the tokenization of real-world assets and bringing them on-chain, thus bringing billions of dollars into the UAE’s virtual assets space.

Hamad Sayah Al Mazrouei, CEO of the Registration Authority (RA) of ADGM said, “Welcoming IOTA, one of the most established and well-respected blockchain protocols into ADGM’s DLT regime exemplifies our ambition to position Abu Dhabi’s stature as a prime location and ADGM as the leading jurisdiction for the blockchain industry. It is a strong validation of ADGM’s progress with its new and revolutionary DLT Foundations Framework. Working with companies like IOTA, ADGM aims to move towards a future characterized by setting global benchmarks in the ever-evolving blockchain and Web3 landscape”.

“The IOTA Foundation’s support from ADGM and our partnership with UAE authorities is about more than global expansion. It’s about ushering in a new era of regulatory synergy in the crypto markets,” said Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chairman of the IOTA Foundation. “We want to ensure that we take the right steps toward digital autonomy for everyone, and that means making sure a diversity of communities take an active role in shaping the Foundation’s technology and governance.”

In early November 2023, IOTA stated it would be launching its DLT Foundation in Abu Dhabi UAE soon.

UAE digital assets infrastructure provider Fuze has partnered with Abu Dhabi headquartered Wio Bank to empower its customers with virtual assets trading services.

Customers will be able to buy and sell popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, directly through Wio Bank’s recently launched application, Wio Personal.

Wio Personal is an intelligent everyday banking application redefining the way individuals see, manage, and grow their money. The personal banking application allows all customers to start investing simply and effortlessly. Wio Personal users can access thousands of global stocks, ETFs, fractional shares and even UAE IPOs seamlessly in a single, integrated app.

Speaking about the significance of the partnership, Jayesh Patel, CEO of Wio Bank PJSC, said, “The region is emerging as an important hub for cryptocurrency and there is a demand from customers for convenient, seamless access to crypto trading services integrated within their daily banking apps. As a business that was created to catalyze the digital banking ecosystem, we are excited at the opportunities this collaboration with Fuze provides, to better serve our customers and support the UAE’s forward-thinking transformation of the financial services sector. Fuze mirrors our own robust governance, compliance, and risk capabilities, so our customers can be confident in having secure access to Virtual Assets.”

Mohammed Ali Yusuf (Mo Ali Yusuf), Co-Founder and CEO of Fuze, added, “As a regulated provider, we are proud to partner with Wio Bank, which has already made tremendous strides in redefining banking for the modern era across the region. There is a clear synergy with our mission to build the future of finance and we look forward to supporting Wio Bank in delivering regulated, trusted crypto services to its flourishing customer base.”

In a recent UAE poll suggested 48% of crypto users lacked trust in crypto exchanges. Through such partnerships, neobanks can provide regulated options for their customers and help to increase trust in the crypto ecosystem.

In a surprise move, Mustafa Kheriba, the Executive Chairman of Venomex, a UAE regulated crypto exchange and one of the initial investors and supporters of UAE based Venom Blockchain Foundation has resigned from his position at Venom Foundation.

Sources in the know confirmed this to LaraontheBlock, however Mr. Kheriba would not comment when asked about the reasons for resignation.

Prior to this in August 2023, the CEO of Venomex, Arshad Khan also resigned his position at the crypto exchange and is now a partner at UAE based Fils.

Venomex Limited is a Multilateral Trading Facility and Custodian, based in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and received FSP from Financial Services Regulatory Authority of ADGM. Venomex as such became a regulated, crypto asset exchange and custodian in the region that focuses on institutional and retail investors. The Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) has given FSP to establish and operate a full-fledged MTF and digital custodian.

In terms of Venom Foundation, its chairman and Co Founder Peter Knez the former CIO at BlackRock & ex Goldman Sachs executive has been active, recently speaking at the Genesis XBT event. The event brought together market-makers, VCs, and mining industry leaders in EMEA & CIS’s leading crypto gathering. According to Knez, “ It was a fantastic opportunity for the Venom team to connect, share, and learn in the vibrant hub of Dubai’s blockchain community!”

Venom Foundation earlier this year in January had launched in partnership with Iceburg Capital a $1 billion Venom Ventures Fund.

Venom Foundation, is a  Layer-1 blockchain licensed and regulated by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), and Iceberg Capital is an ADGM regulated investment manager. The Venom Ventures fund is a blockchain-agnostic fund that was targeting  innovative protocols and Web3 dApps, focusing on long-term trends such as payments, asset management, DeFi, banking services, and GameFi.

At the time the fund’s leadership team consisted of Peter Knez, ex-CIO at BlackRock and Mustafa Kheriba, but now given that Kheirba has resigned, it would seem he will no longer be involved in the fund as well.

Mustafa had served on the Board of Directors of several financial services and insurance companies prior to Venom Blockchain Foundation.

Venom Blockchain Foundation back in October 2022 became the first ADGM licensed crypto foundation to build a scalable blockchain platform. ADGM at the time stated, “Venom is on its way to developing an NFT marketplace, derivative exchange and fiat-backed stablecoin.”

Yet to date Venom Foundation’s only achievement was an MOU signed with the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and environment to launch the first blockchain enabled national system for carbon credits, as well as the launch of their testnet.

Venom Foundation also faced some challenges in 2023 with regards to one of its early investors Alibek Garcia Issaev, which is said to have involved a UAE court case against him.

Whatever the case, it seems Venom Foundation is facing big challenges when one of its early supporters and investors resigns.

The article was updated at 14:34 Monday 27th 2023.

The eToro platform which offers traders and investors more than 3,000 different financial assets, including stocks, cryptocurrencies, ETFs, indices, currencies and commodities has announced receiving approval for Financial Services Permission from the regulatory body FSRA at ADGM ( Abu Dhabi Global Market) in UAE.

While eToro’s main research and development office is located in Tel Aviv, Israel, it has legal entities registered in the UK, US, Australia and Cyprus. The firm is regulated by the CySEC authority in the EU; it is authorized by the FCA in the UK, and by FinCEN in the United States, and by the ASIC in Australia. eToro boasts of 35 million customers across 100 countries.

In September 2022, eToro has recieved its in principle approval.

The approval will allow eToro to operate as a broker for securities, derivatives, and cryptoassets in the United Arab Emirates.

Yoni Assia, Founder and CEO of eToro, comments, “The approval of our operating license by ADGM is a key milestone in our continued global expansion. Abu Dhabi is increasingly recognized as a growing fintech hub, and we are excited to become part of this flourishing ecosystem. With our team in Abu Dhabi led by Jason Hughes, Senior Executive Officer for eToro Middle East and George Naddaf, GCC & MENA Regional Manager, we are looking forward to deepening our relationships in this dynamic market and to helping our UAE clients grow their financial knowledge and wealth as part of a global community of investors.”

Arvind Ramamurthy, Chief of Market Development at ADGM, added, “We are delighted to welcome eToro to ADGM. We are confident that ADGM’s dynamic ecosystem and progressive regulations will enable eToro’s vision, ADGM is the largest regulated jurisdiction of virtual assets in the MENA region and eToro’s participation will add to its vibrant and trusted ecosystem of virtual asset trading venues, global exchanges and service providers, and reinforce the UAE’s strategic value to global finance.”

eToro, M2, Rain have all beat Binance to it by recieving crypto broker exchange licenses from ADGM, while Binance currently has a crypto custodial license allowing it only to deal with institutional clients.

IOTA an open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of things announced that it will be establishing its IOTA regulated foundation for digital infrastructure in Abu Dhabi UAE. This is as per their blog is a move that underlines their commitment to the UAE and their growth plans globally. Prior to this IOTA had announced in September it would launch its headquarters in UAE.

As per the blog post, the purpose of this entity is to become one of the primary organizations to foster the growth, adoption, and global expansion of IOTA. The post states, “As we open up a new chapter with IOTA, we need to match technology with the right support to establish IOTA as a global ecosystem. We can only do this by operating out of the right environment. We are convinced that the UAE will offer IOTA the best environment to realize its global ambitions.”

It adds,” We want IOTA to be a public goods infrastructure that will power our digital society and economy. With the new foundation in Abu Dhabi, we are confident that we will achieve this vision of the future.”

This announcement comes just after ADGM (Abu Dhabi Global Market) regulatory authority (FSRA) announced its new DLT Foundation regulatory framework. So IOTA could be the first entity to launch under this new regulatory framework.

According to Dominik Schiener, Chairman of the IOTA Foundation: ”From the very beginning, we have experienced a very warm welcome and unwavering support from leaders, regulators, and businesses in Abu Dhabi. I am simply amazed at how the country operates and how it is being led by visionary and open-minded leaders. This “can-do” mentality is the perfect environment for us to take IOTA to the next level. We are excited to play a role in helping to establish the UAE as a hub for technology innovations.”

The newly established foundation will operate under the guidance of a dedicated board of directors. One of its primary objectives will be to provide essential funding and support to the rapidly growing IOTA ecosystem. This commitment aligns with our mission to foster innovation and development within the broader DLT space.

IOTA aims to work closely with leading institutions out of the UAE, and building a thriving DLT ecosystem in the UAE and beyond.  

This announcement comes as the IOTA Foundation was chosen as a key participant in the UAE’s official startup delegation at CEATEC in Japan.

“We are thrilled to announce that the IOTA Foundation has been chosen as a key participant in the UAE’s official startup delegation at the upcoming CEATEC conference, scheduled from October 17th to 20th and held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. This recognition is an immense honor and a testament to IOTA’s pivotal role in pioneering Web3 and Web2 innovations.”

In May 2023, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani AlZeyoudi and the Founder of Iota, Dominik Schiener, met announcing that the IoTa Blockchain platform has now been ushered into the UAE’s digital ecosystem.

Marathon Digital Holding, a crypto mining entity has mined 18 Bitcoin out of the 1,202 Bitcoin produced in October 2023 from its UAE joint venture with 2.3 exahashes online in Abu Dhabi with 7 exahashes to be online by end of 2023. The figures were published in its unaudited Bitcoin BTC production and miner installation updates for October 2023.

Fried Thiel, Marathon Digital’s Chairman and CEO  stated in their press release, “  “In October, we increased our energized hash rate 1% to 19.2 exahashes as the facility in Garden City, Texas, where we have 4.1 exahashes of miners installed, began to come online. Once this facility is fully operational later this month, we will have surpassed our 23 exahash target and solidified Marathon as the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miner in North America.”

In terms of the operation in UAE, Thiel added, “By increasing our hash rate and continuing to improve our operations at the facility in McCamey, Texas and elsewhere, we earned 4.0% of the total Bitcoin network’s available miner rewards and produced 1,202 bitcoin in October. This total includes 18 bitcoin from our 20% share of the JV in Abu Dhabi. We now have 2.3 exahashes online in Abu Dhabi as our second, larger facility in Masdar City has begun powering up. We continue to expect the full 7.0 exahashes in the UAE to be online by year-end.

“We have also been exploring new methods of mining that we believe may allow us to further diversify our operations, reduce our energy costs, and increase our sustainable energy mix. We recently announced a pilot project in Utah that is exclusively powered by landfill methane gas. Naturally produced methane is often stranded, and Bitcoin miners like Marathon are uniquely positioned to help capture and convert this environmentally harmful gas into clean, renewable energy. We look forward to sharing more of the many innovative mining projects that we are exploring in the months ahead.”

Furthermore in November 8th Marathon Digital Holdings reported results for the third quarter 2023 including its operational results for the quarter ended September 30th 2023, Thiel made a statement showcasing how their international expansion in UAE has opened up new international opportunities such as Paraguay. He noted, “We made significant progress on our 2023 strategic  priorities in the  third quarter. First, we grew our energized hash rate 8% quarter-over-quarter to  19.1 exahashes. In addition, our new facility in Garden City started energizing last week and is  expected to be fully operational later this month. Second, we experienced significantly higher uptime  as  optimization  efforts  helped  increase  our  U.S. average operational hash  rate 18%  from last  quarter to  14.2 exahashes.  Third, we energized our first joint venture and our first international location in  the UAE. This initial success has helped open new opportunities, and we  recently entered into a new joint venture in Paraguay powered by hydroelectricity.

The Company recorded net income of $64.1 million, or $0.35 per diluted share, during the three months ended  September 30, 2023, compared  to a net loss  of $72.5 million, or $0.62 loss per share, in the same period last year.

Marathon Digital officially inaugurated it 200 MW Bitcoin mining facility at Masdar City in Abu Dhabi UAE, under the joint venture Two Zero. In January 27th 2022, Marathon digital Holdings, announced that it had entered into a shareholder’s agreement with FSI (FS Innovation), the BTC mining subsidiary of UAE ADQ a sovereign fund, to form an Abu Dhabi, (Abu Dhabi Global Markets) based company.

Swiss based Copper, an institutional digital asset infrastructure provider focusing on custody and collateral management, has acquired  Abu Dhabi based Securrency Capital Limited, a full-service, regulated blockchain-enabled brokerage firm offering digital securities trading based in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), making its entry into the UAE market.

This comes just after The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, an American post-trade financial services company providing clearing and settlement services to the financial markets known as DTCC, signed a definitive agreement to acquire Abu Dhabi based Securrency Inc. (“Securrency”), a leading developer of institutional-grade, digital asset infrastructure invested in by Mubadala sovereign Fund.

The two entities Securrency and Securrency Capital have been sold to other institutions just months apart. Securrency Capital Limited is a full-service regulated institutional brokerage firm that offers both traditional and digital financial services. Its mission is to deliver asset tokenization benefits to retail and institutional clients by providing access to multiple digital products and asset classes through a single, easily accessible marketplace

While Securrency is an institutional-grade digital asset infrastructure provider that offers  solutions to market participants to facilitate the trading, settlement and servicing of digital securities and assets.

Securrency Capital’s platform is powered by Securrency, allowing it to provide investors with access to global securities, delivering 24/7 trading with near-real time settlement. In addition, the tokenisation of traditional securities enables increased investor access and simpler, more efficient value chain management through automation.

Operating out of ADGM and supervised by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), Securrency Capital Limited will be renamed Copper Securities Limited and will remain headquartered in the ADGM.

Dmitry Tokarev, CEO and Founder of Copper, said: “Through this acquisition, Copper is able to grow its role as a global digital asset infrastructure provider and establish a stronger footprint in the United Arab Emirates. This is just the beginning of our expansion into the Middle East.”

John Hensel, Co-founder & COO of Securrency, Inc, said: “I am thrilled to announce Securrency Capital’s acquisition by Copper. We look forward to working with Dmitry and team as they serve the rapidly growing Abu Dhabi Global Market.”

Broadhaven Capital Partners acted as an adviser to Copper on the deal.

As per a news article, The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange is preparing for Phoenix Group, a datacenter crypto mining company, upcoming IPO schedule to start on November 16th 2023 for two days, where the company will float $370 million worth of stocks equivalent to 17.64 per cent of it stock.

Phoenix Group is set to offer each share at the price of 0.41 cents (1.5 AED).  Retail investors are required to invest a minimum of $1360 (AED5,000) to participate in the IPO, which allocates 6.67% (or 60.48 million shares) to them. Analysts view Phoenix as offering local investors their first experience with growth opportunities centered on cryptocurrency.

Recently, International Holding Company (IHC) of UAE purchased a 10% stake in Phoenix Group. The company manages the ‘Citadel Project’, which is the largest crypto-mining facility in Abu Dhabi. Most recently Phoenix Group partnered with M2 to offer crypto yield product.

“The Phoenix IPO represents the first opportunity for investors to gain exposure to the crypto and blockchain  through a professionally managed and licensed entity,” said Sameer Lakhani, Managing Director at Global Capital Partners. “It signals to investors the role that ADX and the UAE are carving out in this space as a result of their superior regulatory rules in the crypto domain.

In an interview with Entrepreneur magazine, .Munaf Ali, co-founder and Managing Director of Phoenix Group stated, “I aim to create an organization that consistently delivers unprecedented returns to our stakeholders, shareholders, investors, and the dedicated team that has been our backbone throughout our journey. By striving for excellence and innovation, we will position Phoenix as a frontrunner in the market, gaining recognition and respect on a global scale.

Phoenix Group invested in a 250 MW data mining facility in Abu Dhabi, as well as expanded to Oman with a 150 MW facility with Green Data City.

As for sales, they remained robust in 2023, reflecting Phoenix’s agility and commitment to market expansion,” the company notes. Its trading operations fetched $161 million in 2021, and last year, that shot up to $715 million, helped by arrangements with the likes of Bitmain and MicroBT.

The GCC region has become a very attractive location for crypto mining firms.

Latham Watkins announced that it advised UAE’s Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), financial free zone in the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Foundations regulations, which aims to further build the digital assets hub.

UAE’s Abu Dhabi Global Market after announcing its DLT token issuance consultation paper in April 2023 has now officially launched its new regulation that will allow DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) Foundations, DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) to issue tokens.

This means that DLT Foundations of Layer 1 or Layer 2 protocol Foundations can receive licenses from ADGM and offer tokenized assets, or digital assets, or possibly established organizations wishing to use DLT and issue tokens.

This new regulation could encourage global blockchain DLT protocol Foundations such as Ethereum, Cardano, Hedera, and others to enter the UAE. UAE based Venom Foundation, a Layer1 blockchain protocol could also benefit. The Foundation recently announced a partnership with the UAE Government to establish the National Carbon Credit System can also utilize the new regulation.

The DLT Foundation regulation came as a response to interest from foundations being used for DLT purposes that require issuance of governance tokens.

According to Latham Watkins press release, “The regulations, published on November 1, 2023, present a worlds-first purpose-built legislative framework for establishing and operating DLT foundations for the use, deployment, development, facilitation, or support of DLT or issuance of tokens. They aim to provide market players with ample governance flexibility within DLT foundations recognizing new realities in decentralization.”

The Latham team was led by Dubai/Riyadh partner Brian Meenagh and London partners Stuart Davis and Andrew Moyle, with Dubai associate Ksenia Koroleva, Riyadh associate Matthew Rodwell, and London associate Sam Maxson leading on benchmarking and drafting. Advice was also provided by New York partner Stephen Wink, Hong Kong associate Zoe Wang, Singapore associate Gen Tan, and San Francisco associate Adam Zuckerman.

Stuart Davis, Global Co-Chair of Latham’s Digital Assets & Web3 Practice, commented: “This bespoke regime for DLT foundations, catering to a vast spectrum of blockchain and web3 use cases and decentralized business models, significantly advances the industry, reinforcing ADGM’s position as a leading market for blockchain innovation.”

As per the ADGM press release, “The new regime is set to enable positive transformation across the blockchain and Web3 landscape, fostering a more transparent and efficient future. Issued by the Registration Authority (RA) of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Foundations Regulations 2023 marks a significant milestone in the evolution of digital assets regulatory frameworks across the region and at an international level. It aims to provide a comprehensive framework for DLT Foundations and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), enabling them to operate and issue tokens recognizing the unique needs of the Blockchain industry.”

According to the regulation document, a DLT Foundation is a legal entity established to use, deploy, develop, facilitate or support DLT or to issue tokens.

Looking into the regulation rulebook, when it comes to token issuance, DLT Foundations will have to provide information about the operation of the relevant smart contracts, vesting schedules and overall token supply over time; and  provisions, if applicable, on pre-emption and buy-back rights (and circumstances in which those will apply), as well as provisions regarding token economics;  any restrictions on transferability or technological lock-ups; types of Tokens that the DLT Foundation can issue or limitations on types of Tokens that the DLT Foundation can issue and blockchain protocols used for issuance; as well as the  purposes and intended use of Tokens.

His Excellency Ahmed Jasim Al Zaabi, Chairman of ADGM, stated, “Abu Dhabi is rapidly emerging as the destination of choice for global players at the forefront of digital asset development. The introduction of the DLT Foundations Regime marks a revolutionary step forward, reinforcing ADGM’s commitment to a proactive approach rooted in extensive cross-industry dialogue and collaboration with various stakeholders. The new regime serves as a driving force for positive change in the digital assets sector. By transforming the blockchain and Web3 landscape, we are moving towards a future characterized by setting global benchmarks with enhanced transparency and efficiency.”