United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia’s Cryptocurrency Project Is on Track

In a recent report, the Emirates News Agency announced that the Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates coalition’s intent to further the development of seven joint initiatives in vital sectors of their economy, as one of these projects is from the cryptocurrency sector.

This push for the development of diverse projects to strengthen the economy from the two powerful countries (financially speaking) can also be seen as a realization of the fact that they need to end their dependence on the oil business. With such a push from social and development environments around the world for greener energy sources, it’s only a matter of time before the world starts to ditch oil and gas to fulfill their power needs. The second factor is that there’s a great push for adoption cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption on a national level.

The Executive Committee of the “Strategy of Resolve” vision held its first meeting in Abu Dhabi on Jan 19. The committee is led by Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future from the UAE side. From Saudi Arabia’s side, the committee is led by Mohammad bin Mazyad Altwaijri, Minister of Economy and Planning. Sixteen members of the committee attended its first meeting.

According to the report, the committee “seeks to safeguard customer interests, set technology standards and assess cybersecurity risks,” as the major objectives of the system while it evaluates the “impact of a central currency on monetary policies.”

The talks regarding a cross border cryptocurrency had been going on since late 2018. Last year, Saudi Arabia’s largest bank National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia (NCB) had partnered up with Ripplenet to borrow their technology to connect with other financial institutions. UAE has also been involved in recent news regarding developments in the crypto ecosystem in the country.

Interestingly, the Saudi government has declared last year that cryptocurrency is illegal in its territories; but evidently a cryptocurrency of its own under the regime’s oversight and control is a whole different matter. No wonder that actual decentralized digital currencies can be a key to democratic liberation in authoritative countries such as Saudi Arabia.

Countries pushing cryptocurrencies on a national level is not a new trend. Just last year, governments of China, Thailand, France, USA, and Japan saw a push for crypto powered technologies in sectors of health, defense, education, and taxation. Blockchain technology is slowly seeping into every sector of the international industry and it looks set to become the new norm in the near future.