The World Blockchain Summit in Dubai presented a lot of opportunities for many blockchain enthusiasts and industry professionals. The event was very educational and provided space for networking with like-minded individuals. The CoinQuora team met with many leaders in the blockchain space, and one of the people that we had an opportunity to meet is Mr. Omar Rahim, MENA Director of Binance. Mr. Rahim and I had a very insightful discussion, and we are happy to share it with our CoinQuora readers.
Q. How have you found the conference so far?
I’ve really enjoyed the conference over the last two days. It’s been great meeting projects from all over the world converging here in Dubai. I think the big thing for me is that the quality is really high. The projects have been of the right standard and the talks have been really really interesting. So I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of days.
Q. Which projects specifically do you find really interesting?
So naturally, you’d expect me to say any project built on Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Of course, we’re big supporters, but no, we encourage the ecosystem to grow as a whole, so whether they’re built on Binance Smart Chain or have an interface with Binance or not, I think there’s been some really interesting infrastructure plays that we’re looking to see. One of the things we’re looking to encourage as much as possible is projects that are based out of the Middle East. So, we’d love to see more MENA projects promote them in the crypto space.
Q. Does Binance have any major plans in the Middle East or Dubai specifically, that you can share?
Yes, we’ve been operating in the region for quite some time already now and we’ve noticed how the UAE is becoming more and more crypto-friendly. So what we want to do here is collaborate with the regulators in the region to build a very large and compliant base here. So, we’re in Dubai now to have some bilateral meetings because we think the UAE and Dubai in particular are going to be a really important hub for the industry going forward.
Q. Do you have any thoughts to share about DeFi or NFTs?
Absolutely, yes. So, DeFi and NFTs I don’t think have really scratched the surface. We’re really excited about DeFi and as you know, we have our own NFT platform that we launched just this year. I think we’re still in that experimental phase in both the DeFi and NFT industries. We’re really looking forward to seeing these industries mature and grow because we think there is a huge number of practical applications of NFTs, far beyond digital art that we’re just scratching the surface on. So, very very interested to collaborate with anyone in both spaces.
When I look at disruption and disrupting the financial sector, I think DeFi is still one of those areas that people within crypto really are starting to get in grips with. But, I think that the traditional finance industry really has not understood the potential of DeFi. So for us, the decentralized nature of these protocols means that traditional financial institutions such as banks are going to completely have to change their business model. This is something that we’re really excited about.
Q. Do you have any comments on regulation in crypto and how countries have a varying stance on this matter?
Yes, absolutely. I think regulation is going to really grow the space 10x or 100x. At the moment, global crypto adoption is at 2%. What we’re really interested in doing for everyone in the industry is to make space accessible to the other 98% of the market, who perhaps, at the moment, feel a little nervous about the industry and they need that regulated environment. We want to work very collaboratively with regulators across the world just to enable that mass adoption which hopefully will benefit the whole industry. I think the main message for us here both in the UAE and globally is that getting regulated across the globe will really help the whole industry grow.
Q. Do you have any final thoughts for us?
I’m really pleased to be here in Dubai. We’ve met so many projects from across the world that are converging here in Dubai. We’d love to see some local homegrown projects within the MENA region. It would be great to see some projects that originated from the region. We’re looking to support those and other businesses with the recent release of our $1 billion fund, that we just launched on BSC. I encourage everyone to go on our website and read a little about our fund and see how we can support those businesses and help them grow.