MENA tops world in crypto adoption

MENA tops world in crypto adoption

The Middle East & North Africa (Mena) region has topped the world in cryptocurrency adoption over the past year, recent data showed.

The 2022 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report by Chainalysis, the blockchain data platform, showed that Mena-based users received $566 billion in cryptocurrency from July 2021 to June 2022, 48 per cent more than they received the previous year.

According to Chainalysis research, cases around savings preservation and remittance payments as well as increasingly permissive crypto regulations help explain the trend. “In Turkey and Egypt, fluctuating cryptocurrency prices have coincided with rapid fiat currency devaluations, strengthening the appeal of crypto for savings preservation,” the report said. The Turkish lira has inflated by 80.5 per cent in the last year; while the Egyptian pound weakened by 13.5 per cent. Also significant, however, is Egypt’s remittance market. “Remittance payments account for about 8 per cent of Egypt’s GDP, and the country’s national bank has already begun a project to build a crypto-based remittance corridor between Egypt and the UAE, where many Egyptian natives work,” the report said.

As key business hubs of the Mena region, the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are fast emerging as key players in the crypto market, the