Encrypted

In the 24th episode of Encrypted, Ahmed and Faisal were joined by a very special guest from the Middle Eastern bitcoin and blockchain community, Ola Doudin, CEO of Bitoasis.

Being the only exchange in the MENA region with on-ramp and off-ramp (i.e. exchange fiat for crypto and vice versa), Ola shares her background and past experiences before launching Bitoasis. We were impressed by it and we’re sure you will too!

First, we wanted to clear misconceptions and confusion around the ‘Virtual Currency’ ban in a policy paper that was issued by the UAE Central Bank in early 2017. With Bitoasis already being an established digital assets exchange, Ola explains how they reacted to this piece of news and how they made a clear path forward.

How can you get a crypto exchange license in the UAE?

This led the discussion to the subject of obtaining a crypto exchange license here in the UAE when there was no clear guidance or laws on running crypto asset exchanges. Ola explains their approach with licensing in the UAE, their approach with lawyers and regulators and most importantly, how they dealt with compliance. For those budding exchange entrepreneurs looking towards the MENA region, you’ll definitely learn a thing or two from Ola’s experience.

Oh and what about a bank account?

Getting bank accounts as a crypto company is not an easy task here in the UAE. Ola, however, has showcased to the region that it is doable. She explains the journey Bitoasis had with their banking relationships, the challenges they encountered and how they resolved them. Yes, relationships played a key role, but make sure to listen in to hear what else Bitoasis had up their sleeve to secure stable banking relationships for their exchange.

Ola emphasises that after the ADGM issued its exchange guidelines, regional banks have taken a more accommodating approach to banking crypto companies.

Regulatory and competitive landscape

Ola talks about her experiences engaging with regulators across the region and GCC stating that we are at a point where most crypto companies and exchanges have to classify themselves as a financial services companies and thus have to be regulated accordingly. Faisal tries to understand how Ola is trying to scale Bitoasis in the region as well as her thoughts on the regional crypto exchange competitive landscape as more exchanges are actively trying to set up shop in the UAE.

Bitoasis’ Demographics

Ola shares the demographics of Bitoasis’ platform; particularly the persona of their users and their most active regions. She also highlights that the main crypto communities are UAE, Saudi and Kuwait.

She also mentions that users are not only on the exchange to trade and invest but their users use their platform as a means of payment and micropayments through their wallet product.

Being a crypto entrepreneur in the Middle East – wait a female crypto entrepreneur

Here we try to understand Ola a bit more and how she persevered in a niche space during a time when blockchain and crypto was unheard of and typically rejected. Vision, their stakeholders, execution and being in the right city to experiment (want to hazard a guess where they experimented?) were the main factors behind their growth and success. This is an interesting part of the episode, so do make sure to tune in!

Decentralisation and data hacking

We diverted our discussion to data, how dangerous centralised data stores are for society and more specifically the paradigm shift that needs to occur to prevent incidents such as the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica case. Ola asks an interesting question: when a huge data leak happens, what is the role of government and public services?

Building the infrastructure and what should be done in the region?

Ahmed asks Ola where does she see Bitoasis in 5 years time? Will they do an ICO, be an STO exchange etc?

‘Building the infrastructure; particularly the liquidity pool and education that’s needed to build an industry’ – was her answer. Very visionary and powerful!

Faisal follows up to hear Ola’s thoughts on what she thinks should be the government’s role to aid the industry and especially what should be done in the UAE and Dubai? Well, do tune in to find out.

As you can see, we talked about a lot of things and so all of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Ola Doudin.

Let’s face it, Dubai has sent ripples across the blockchain ecosystem upon the launch of its Dubai Blockchain strategy which was launched by H.H. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al-Maktoum in October 2016.

Ahmed sits down with Mohammed Al-Sharid, the Senior Project Manager for Business Development & Global Partnerships at the Smart Dubai Office, which is a government agency in the UAE tasked with making Dubai the happiest city on earth.

Mohammed gives a deep dive into how Smart Dubai are using their role as an implementor and orchestrator within the blockchain ecosystem to ensure Dubai becomes the first blockchain powered city by 2020.

Mohammed starts off the deep dive by talking about the 3 pillars that defines Dubai’s Blockchain strategy.

The First Pillar: Government Efficiency

Mohammed explains the 3 different elements (Use Cases, Blockchain Platform and Blockchain policy implementation) within the first pillar and how the three contribute to help the government of Dubai increase efficiency within their government departments. Make sure to listen to this episode to find out about these 3 elements, especially If you’re a start-up, policy implementor, and also interested in crypto. (Yes, a Crypto Positioning by Smart Dubai is cooking under the hood for 2019).

Mohammed also mentions a couple of uses that is being implemented currently.

The Second Pillar: Industry Creation

To achieve the 2020 vision, Smart Dubai have been running the Global Blockchain challenge for the past 2 years where they have received hundreds of applications across the world to tap into the growing innovation taking place globally. The Global Blockchain Challenge is back for 2019, where Dubai is calling all blockchain start-ups to apply to the Challenge. The 20 shortlisted winners will be competing in the Future Blockchain Summit organised by Smart Dubai which is taking place in April 2019. P.S. Application deadline is 30th January 2019. Details are below.

The second part of the Industry Creation is about helping to accelerate blockchain projects at the Dubai Future Accelerators program where start-ups work with government agencies for 12 weeks to build a proof of concept.

The Third Pillar: International Leadership

This pillar is about cross border collaborations to build Dubai as an international leader within the blockchain space. Listen in to hear how they are building bridges with other cities to build blockchain use cases.

As well as building Dubai as a hub, they are actively learning from different jurisdictions such as Malta and Crypto Valley in Switzerland.

Finally, listen into how one of the live blockchain use cases being built across several government departments in Dubai regarding payment reconciliation.

Global Blockchain Challenge Details

For more information about Smart Dubai, please click on this link Smart Dubai.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Mohammed AlSharid.

Happy New Year all!

Ahmed and Faisal sit together to open the 2019 year with 4 predictions and trends the duo expect to see in the new year.

The first trend is of course the rise of Security Tokens/Digital Securities and Security Token Offerings/Digital Security offerings (yes the industry has yet to properly set key terms and definitions, and so they are being used interchangeably). They explain what they are, why they are important and what we expect to see in this space.

The second trend is all about tech implementation. This revolves more around the simple fact that many big tech implementations such as Ethereum’s Casper, main nets of popular projects and the usability of layer 2 solutions are due to launch in 2019. This will showcase whether the complementary pieces that seeks to improve some of blockchain’s weaknesses will actually show some promise. It is a huge thing to look out for as the industry is depending on the tech advancements from these grand experiments.

The third is all about education and adoption. The duo believe there will be more education and adoption about the core tenets of the technology but also from the perceived benefits that this technology brings. Ahmed argues that we need to be comfortable as a society with fully automated and truly digital experiences before decentralisation seeks to take place.

Lastly, the pair touch on regional developments and what to expect from the UAE in terms of country wide regulation and how self-regulation is happening at a governmental level.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

AND

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https://faisalalhawi.typeform.com/to/fxfOpk

Sources:

Blockchain in 2019: Trends to watch

Ahmed is joined by two Partners from Simmons & Simmons law firm; George Morris a Partner in the London office and Raza Rizvi a Partner in the Dubai office.

Ahmed starts off by asking about Simmons and Simmons’ journey in the blockchain and crypto space. George explains how they started their journey by working with projects to help them navigate through the grey area that still very much exists till today.

The talk moves onto the different regulatory jurisdictions and how they are different from one another when wanting to conduct an ICO or any other crypto related activity. George also does a deep dive into the difference between ICOs and STOs and lays out the process for how STOs from an equity standpoint should be conducted. Yes, lots of free advice from a lawyer!

The conversation then moves onto regulatory arbitrage or World War Regulation as the three discuss what regulatory arbitrage is, why it exists and whether or not it actually aids and adds value to the industry. Raza also talks about the regulatory arbitrage happening in MENA and how that actually aids regulators to make collaborations.

Self-regulation is another topic that was discussed during this episode as George argues the case for self-regulation and cites current examples and themes. Finally, Ahmed tries to understand how Simmons & Simmons are planning to utilise smart contracts for the future.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guests: George Morris and Raza Rizvi.

Ahmed and Faisal sit down with Samson Williams, Partner from Axes and Eggs, in episode 20 of Encrypted.

In this episode the trio do a 2018 recap looking at positives, negatives and lessons learnt from the industry.

Ahmed starts off with the lessons learnt from this bear market and what a 75% decline in bitcoin actually means. Samson uses examples from his education courses citing that ICOs and STOs are not businesses and how people still fall for selling low and buying high.

Samson and Faisal talks about their experiences dealing with banks and how cryptocurrencies should all be about seamless user experiences and a customer service battles. Samson argues that those launching cryptocurrencies, are in fact launching global payment systems.

Ahmed questions what 2018 use cases we have seen in blockchain and cites the lack of killer apps not in production as being a factor stagnating the industry. The topic of who’s winning in this market and regulation being put in place is seen as a positive element in this industry as well as citing IBMs hyperledger being the current leaders in deploying blockchain use cases.

Old lessons of building businesses are brought to surface as the MENA based souq.com example is highlighted as it took them 12 years before Amazon bought them out and thus the same thing should happen in the ICO space.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Samson Williams.

Faisal is finally back on this episode with Encrypted alongside Ahmed. They are joined by this week’s special guest; Chris Fernandez, CEO of Block Gemini, a blockchain focused developer shop based in the UAE.

The show kicks off with Chris explaining his background and the history of Block Gemini and its growth trajectory.

Chris explains their enterprise blockchain solution approach when it comes to B2B relationships and B2G (business to government) relationships. He the discusses the trends in enterprise blockchain and his outlook for 2019.

The three then discuss what is needed for smart contracts and blockchain technology to fully realise its potential in enterprise level applications. The IP issue is also debated as it is seen as an impediment to adoption for when enterprises are collaborating on blockchain projects.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Chris Fernandez.

On episode 18 of Encrypted, Ahmed and Aniket discuss recent developments that have been happening in the blockchain world!

Ahmed first starts off by talking about his experience at the Sora Summit in Macau and explains his takeaways from the investment focused event.

The two then go on to discuss the recent news of the week, starting off with the SEC going after ICOs that did not comply with SEC laws. The two projects in question, Airfox and Paragon, had to return millions to investors after the SEC managed to settle charges with these projects for not following security registrations laws. They talk about what this means for the future of ICOs, in particular the future of regulation in the states.

They move onto the second article which sheds light on a more progressive regulator; Switzerland, who have approved the world’s first crypto exchange traded fund. The two talk about its background, which cryptos it will be covering and what this means for the industry.

Finally, they move onto the last article which discusses the bitcoin cash hash wars. They explain what bitcoin cash is, its difference with bitcoin and what has been happening in the bitcoin cash camp and why there has been an internal conflict. it is seen that this conflict was the catalyst for the bloodbath in the crypto markets. Ahmed emphasises that this is a grand experiment which is interesting and progressive for the industry.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Sources:

The world is at the at the forefront of the token revolution. With the invention of non-fungible tokens, we have seen a lot of innovations and developments to find solutions to complex real-world problems.

In the episode, Ahmed sits down with Aniket, and they discuss the current happenings in the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) world.

They covered the applications of NFTs in gaming and other industries as well as current developments in the space around nonfungible tokens. They also shared some future trends and why NFTs can possibly be valuable in the future.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

Ahmed is at the World Blockchain Summit where he records episode 16!

He is joined by Loauy Al-Doory from Kambio Ventures and Saeed Al-Darmaki from Binary Financial to take a deep dive into the world of security tokens.

The three distil the concept of security tokens; what they are, how they operate, the problems it can solve and also its difference with utility tokens.

The taxonomy of security tokens is discussed as well as its similarity to traditional market offerings. Ahmed then starts the discussion regarding the customisation of security tokens and whether these will be breaking new ground compared to offerings from traditional markets.

Current market players operating in the space are explored as well as thoughts on the challenges we must solve which will allow security tokens to flourish and be accepted.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guests: Louay Al Doory and Saeed Al Darmaki.

Ahmed sits down with Kris Bennet, also known as the Blockchain Beard Guy, who is on the road non-stop to educate the masses on blockchain.

Kris shares his experiences in educating people from different backgrounds about the technology, and his experiences in helping enterprises deploy blockchain solutions.

Ahmed digs a bit deeper to understand the notion of open and closed blockchains and how this fits in with private and public implementations. For example; Does a public closed blockchain make sense?

The two also talk about best approaches to identify a blockchain use case as well as dissecting the role blockchains will play as Kris argues its merely a tool that is analogous to the internet.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on iTunes and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word!

Special Guest: Kris Bennett.