CRYPTOCURRENCY
The Wall Street of the crypto market The Middle East’s crypto footprint is relatively small in global terms but the initiatives that are being implemented by the authorities underscore how digital assets are making inroads into the region
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he Middle East is one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrency markets in the world, making up 7% of global trading volumes. Research suggests that investors in the region have turned to cryptocurrency to preserve their savings against currency devaluation, a trend that is common in other emerging markets like Africa and Latin America. This phenomenon is more prevalent in countries such as Turkey and Lebanon where the currency’s dramatic slump is fuelling a surge in crypto mining and trading activities—with investors hoping to shield their savings against inflation. Though the region’s crypto footprint is relatively small in global terms, it grew by about 1,500% from the prior year, between July 2020 to June 2021. Considering the growing interest in
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REGULATION IS A STUMBLING BLOCK, BUT REGULATORS HAVE SHOWN THAT THEY SEE THE VALUE OF BLOCKCHAIN AND CRYPTOCURRENCIES, AND ARE WORKING TO SUPPORT THESE TECHNOLOGIES, WHICH BODES WELL FOR FUTURE ADOPTION – Accenture
Banking and Finance news in the MEA market
digital assets from institutional and individual investors alike, the Middle East’s openness and willingness to build a regulatory environment for virtual assets make the region “the Wall Street of the crypto market”. Meanwhile, the global cryptocurrency market value has plunged below $1 trillion as the world’s largest digital currencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, remain under pressure from macroeconomic concerns as well as a liquidity crisis among highprofile crypto companies. The current operating environment has exposed the highly leveraged nature of the crypto industry and caused a liquidity issue across companies except for Binance, which opened 2,000 positions for hiring in June in sharp contrast to a slew of job cuts in the crypto ecosystem.
