In order to speed up the regional adoption of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, Abu Dhabi has established a new association with support from the emirate’s financial free zone.
The Middle East, Africa, and Asia Crypto and Blockchain Association (MEAACBA), a non-profit group supported by Abu Dhabi Global Market, aims to bring industry participants together to discuss strategies and address the biggest challenges facing the industry, while also integrating digital assets into important economic sectors.
According to its website, the nonprofit group will work to promote regulatory solutions, develop business opportunities, and make educational investments to assist industry growth.
Board chairman Jehanzeb Awan, who founded a global risk and compliance consulting firm with a base in Dubai, will lead the association.
Richard Teng, the regional head of Binance for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Stuart Isted, the general manager of Crypto.com for the Middle East and Africa, and Ola Doudin, the CEO of BitOasis, a local cryptocurrency exchange, are among those who support the alliance.
The Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), which oversees the financial sector in the free economic zone of ADGM, published a set of “Guiding Principles” in September outlining how it would approach navigating the regulatory complexities that the digital asset industry had brought to its attention. This was concurrent with the launch of MEAACBA.
The principles are believed to be “crypto-friendly” while yet adhering to some stringent UN anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) international regulations.
In addition, a recent study found that the MENA area has the world’s fastest-growing cryptocurrency market. Transaction volume in MENA reached $566 billion throughout the course of a 12-month period between July 2021 and June 2022, a 48% rise from the prior 12-month period.
In many of these emerging regions, the use case for cryptocurrencies has been the preservation of savings and remittance payments to offset the consequences of inflation in extremely unstable economies.
