Middle East welcomes crypto, while the US is tightening regulations

    Saudi Arabia and the UAE are rolling out a red carpet of easy cryptocurrency regulation, US crypto entrepreneurs say. It’s setting up a contrast to the US, where officials are tightening crypto rules. Financial giants like Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman attended the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, where joined…

    Bahrain-based CoinMena secures $9.5 million seed round

    Headquartered in Bahrain, fiat-to-crypto exchange CoinMENA has secured $9.5M in seed funding from BECO Capital, Kenetic Capital, Arab Bank Switzerland, Bunat Ventures, Rua Growth Fund, FTX investment arm Alameda Research and Girnas Capital. CoinMENA will use funds in a move to further dominate the crypto market in the MENA region. Launched in early 2021 by…

    Total value locked in DeFi protocols jumps 25% in two weeks to $250 billion

    Decentralized finance, also known as DeFi, has continued its unabated growth in the crypto industry as one of the metrics used to measure its progress, total value locked (TVL), has reached a new all-time high of above $250 billion. While Ethereum holds the lion’s share of TVL in DeFi, a great number of decentralized applications…

    JPMorgan analysts say Ethereum is a better bet than Bitcoin now

    JPMorgan analysts said that crypto investors should hold Ethereum rather than Bitcoin as the interest rates rise. While Ethereum powers such booming market areas as decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens, Bitcoin, similar to gold, is likely vulnerable as bond yields and interest rates rise. According to JPMorgan, crypto investors should be holding Ethereum rather than…

    A16z leads a $150 million funding round for NFT game platform Mythical Games

    Mythical Games, a blockchain-based gaming company, has raised $150 million in a Series C round led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) at a $1.25 billion valuation. The firm will use the funds to expand its team, scale operations, and bring new game developers to its non-fungible token (NFT) platform. The American venture firm Andressen Horowitz led…

    What is Web3? And why are all the crypto people talking about it?

    What is Web3 and what is its connection with the crypto world, Aaron Mak describes on Slate. If you’ve been perusing cryptocurrency forums or video-game news recently—or spying everything from New York Times job listings to zany Twitter threads claiming that the traditional job interview is about to be replaced by blockchain-based “quests, adventures and…

    Crypto market cap hits all-time high above $3 trillion

    Major cryptocurrencies rose on Monday, hitting their highest levels in three weeks, while the global cryptocurrency market cap crossed the $3 trillion mark, according to CoinGecko. Cryptocurrencies are gaining confidence as mainstream investors are increasingly adopting crypto assets, pushing the global cryptocurrency market to more than $3 trillion, said CoinGecko, which tracks prices of more…

    UAE’s Phoenix Tech orders crypto mining rigs for $650 million, the largest deal on record

    Phoenix Technology Consultants LLC, a tech firm based in the UAE, has ordered crypto mining rigs for $650 million. This one of the largest purchases on record was revealed on Tuesday by Phoenix Tech CEO Munaf Ali at the World Digital Mining Summit (WDMS) in Dubai. The brand new generation machines delivery will start in…

    DeFi in 5 years can be 100 times larger than today

    The decentralized finance sector currently represents only 0.1% of its maximum potential, and its significant growth is inevitable, as predicts Artem Tolkachev on Cointelegraph. Decentralized finance (DeFi) is a natural product made possible by blockchain technology and has the right and ready infrastructure to propel the technology to a bigger playing field. The space has…

    NexChange CEO: Blockchain has already revolutionized the financial industry

    In an interview with Gulf Business, Juwan Lee, chairman and group CEO of NexChange Group, shared his insights on the current market trends and how blockchain technology will revolutionize the financial sector in the Middle East. Speaking regarding the ongoing hype around blockchain technology, Juwan Lee mentioned the fact that the world is moving from…