Difficult to Dethrone Global Crypto Hub Dubai, Says Ambassador

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) continues to prove its full embrace of the cryptocurrency industry as it is now difficult to unseat the Arab country as the global crypto hub, said UAE’s Barbados Ambassador Gabriel Abed in a phone interview with Bloomberg.

It won’t be easy to dethrone the UAE as the global crypto hub. This country literally has every piece of the puzzle – the leadership, regulations, the free zones, the talent, and the capital

Amid the global crypto boom, the UAE has become a hotbed for the industry with its crypto-friendly policies that made the Gulf nation popular with enthusiasts.

Speaking of talent, the UAE is not short on reliable manpower. While crypto firms from different parts of the world have already set up operations in the UAE, similar interests from traditional bankers were observed to be rapidly growing.

“We see a lot of interest from employees in traditional financial institutions who want to work for us,” revealed Richard Teng, the head of Binance MENA in an interview with Bloomberg. He added that they are already “recruiting a number of them.”

Speaking of talent, the UAE is not short on reliable manpower. While crypto firms from different parts of the world have already set up operations in the UAE, similar interests from traditional bankers were observed to be rapidly growing.

Meanwhile, Amir Tabch, former Emirates Investment bank head of global markets, is a believer that the traditional financial and crypto industries are not too far apart. He revealed that he is looking to hire more bankers to help “bridge the gap” between the two sectors.

Individuals aside, huge enterprises have also gotten into the crypto game as wealth funds such as Mubadala, Royal Group, and ADQ, to name a few, are already on the move into the space.

According to the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, 665 new companies in the first quarter of 2022 applied for registration. Furthermore, DMCC said that 16% of all firm registrations were crypto-centric businesses.

While UAE stands as the Middle East’s third largest crypto market, behind Turkey and Lebanon, with approximately $26 billion in transaction volume, experts have claimed there would be more crypto companies moving to the country.