While we often get to hear about how cryptocurrency adoption is rapidly gaining ground in the West, a number of countries across the Middle East — such as Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — often tend to get overlooked, despite them having made tremendous strides when it comes to establishing regulatory frameworks that are geared toward the optimal utilization of this burgeoning asset class.
For example, a recent report by Asia Times has revealed that the UAE is one of the few nations in the world where the local government has placed special emphasis on promoting the use of crypto. In this regard, we can see that over the first quarter of 2019, UAE-based blockchain startups were able to raise a total of $210 million — thereby putting the Gulf nation at the apex of the world’s top-10 token sale list, even surpassing countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. What is most surprising is that just over a year ago, the UAE didn't even make it on this list, thus proving that the onset of this recent crypto wave throughout the Middle East is somewhat of a recent phenomenon.