The United Arab Emirates has spent quite a lot of time — and considerable resources — positioning itself as a crypto-friendly hub. Its efforts have attracted some of the top names in crypto to the region: the CEO of the world’s largest crypto exchange - Binance’s Changpeng 'Zhao - known as CZ -has a residence in Dubai. It’s where Su Zhu and Kyle Davies fled to after the collapse of their crypto hedge fund, Three Arrows Capital.

Sam Bankman-Fried travelled to Dubai for meetings with investors just weeks before the collapse of FTX - and FTX was one of the first firms granted a license by Dubai’s regulator for virtual assets. Around 4% of FTX’s global customers are based in the UAE, according to court filings in the firm’s bankruptcy case. That makes it one of the top 10 jurisdictions affected  by the FTX fallout. 

Bloomberg reporters Suvashree Ghosh and Ben Bartenstein join the episode to discuss United Arab Emirates’ crypto ambitions.

Subscribe to the Bloomberg Crypto Newsletter at https://bloom.bg/cryptonewsletter 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.