Gulf Countries are Moving Towards Crypto Adoption

By Chetna Phour

Rain Financial is set to open the first cryptocurrency exchange of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. The crypto exchange will be licensed by Bahrain central bank. The main aim of the crypto exchange is to create a new platform for cryptocurrency investment on retail as well as institutional scale. The new exchange will boost the crypto adoption in the country.

From past one year, Rain Financial is a part of the Central Bank of Bahrain’s fintech sandbox. Rain is planning to offer brokerage for both retail and institutional crypto investors. Bahrain sandbox is a regulatory program where applicant experiments in a closely supervised environment before starting the full fledged licensed business. Rain Financial joined the sandbox in 2017 and planning to launch its own cryptocurrency exchange in early 2019. Five other exchanges are also involved with the sandbox and developing their own products.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of the Bahrain Fintech Bay, Khalid Saad,

“There’s no cryptocurrency exchange in the region that is officially regulated; Hopefully, Rain will be the first one.”

The regulated crypto exchange will boost the capital inflow into the crypto ecosystem. Crypto enthusiasts in the region are eagerly waiting for the regulated crypto platform and Rain Financial is ready to fill that gap by launching their crypto exchange in the starting of the next year.

According to the co-founder of Rain Financial, Badaway,

“We are here to fill this demand, with institutional grade infrastructure.”

Currently, Dubai based incumbent BitOasis is facilitating the crypto trading. BitOasis is also a participant in the Bahrain sandbox. BitOasis is focusing on building an active user base of retail investors while Rain wants to focus on retail as well as institutional investors.

In the region, there are various regulations related to the crypto trading like Kuwaiti regulators have banned the institutional investors from working with cryptocurrencies while in Saudi Arabia nobody, whether it is retail or institutional, are allowed to trade Bitcoin. According to the co-founder of Rain Financial, Almoaiqel,

“the primary concern with the regulators in Saudi Arabia is with unregistered entities.”

He added,

“Some of the regulators are not aware that Bitcoin payments are not really anonymous and there are ways to track these.”

After educating the regulators about know-your-customer and anti-money -laundering standards applied by the western exchanges, now the regulators are in the favor of launching regulated cryptocurrency exchange. Rain Financial has also secured banking partners to allow fiat on ramps in all the local Gulf currencies.