RIYADH: Crypto investment products firm 21.co said on Wednesday its subsidiary 21Shares AG has listed a bitcoin exchange-traded product on Nasdaq Dubai, making it the Middle East’s first physically-backed bitcoin ETP, reported Reuters.
The 21Shares Bitcoin ETP trades, under the ticker ABTC, in the same way as the 21Shares Bitcoin ETP in Europe, 21.co said in a statement.
Dubai has ambitions to become a global cryptocurrency hub and has attracted big industry players to set up shop like Binance, which went on a UAE hiring spree this year and is helping to shape the Middle East commercial hub’s virtual assets regulations.
Following the Dubai listing, 21Shares has 46 listed products in seven countries, 21.co added.
Swiss-based 21.co last month raised $25 million in a funding round that valued it at $2 billion, which it said made it “Switzerland’s largest crypto unicorn.”
The crypto market has suffered a rout that has forced some of its biggest players to lay off thousands of employees to cut costs.
But Sherif El-Haddad, appointed 21Shares head of Middle East in August, was upbeat, saying cryptocurrencies were “fast becoming the asset of the future for investors and wealth managers around the world.”
The Middle East and North Africa is the world’s fastest-growing cryptocurrency region, where the volume of crypto received jumped 48 percent in the year to June, blockchain researcher Chainalysis said in a report last week.
Hany Rashwan, CEO and co-founder of 21Shares, said in the statement the company “will continue to support the Middle East’s ambitions to become a global crypto hub.”
Sprinklr partners with Abu Dhabi Digital Authority
Sprinklr, the unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform for modern enterprises, on Wednesday announced a partnership with the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority to help Abu Dhabi Government Entities adopt and scale unified CX programs to improve citizen experiences and engagement across the region.
“This partnership is critical as it will lead to more transparent and collaborative governance approaches that boost resident engagement, enhance the decision-making processes as well strengthen relevance, responsiveness, and accountability of government entities,” said Dr. Mohamed Abdel Hamid Al-Askar, director general of the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority.
Many of the world’s most iconic enterprise brands and largest public organizations leverage Sprinklr’s Unified-CXM platform to help ensure every customer and citizen experience on 30+ digital channels is delivered on-schedule, on-brand, and on-target.
Partnering with ADDA, Sprinklr can simplify the pricing and procurement process to more easily bring solutions to market for ADGEs across the country and continue to scale its presence in the region. By reducing complexity to focus on the resident journey and their needs, the new Unified-CXM programs will provide seamless engagement between residents and government services.
“The rise of modern digital and social channels has transformed the customer and citizen journey — creating an infinitely more interactive, immediate, and personalized path,” said Sprinklr Founder and CEO, Ragy Thomas.