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UAE and Lebanon among the most curious about crypto
A new study by crypto price tracker Coingecko ranks the UAE and Lebanon among the ten most curious nations about cryptocurrencies. The study uses recent Google Trends data and indicates that Nigeria had garnered a total search score of 371, making it the nation with the most interest in crypto.
The United Arab Emirates was ranked second, with a total Google search score of 270. ’Cryptocurrency’ and ‘invest in crypto’ are among the popular phrases searched in the UAE. The UAE has been looking to develop a regulatory ecosystem for the growth of the local crypto sector, and witnessed lately an increasing popularity of crypto.
Some of the significant developments in the UAE are the launch of Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), and the announcement of the Dubai metaverse strategy, which aims to attract more than 1,000 blockchain and metaverse companies to the Emirate as well as support more than 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030.
But the UAE wasn’t the only Arab country in the top 10. The 7th rank went to Lebanon, as the Lebanese are showing an increasing interest in crypto as a hedge against the historical inflation the country is facing since 2019, leading to many restrictions on banking transactions and wire transfers.
Snacks
Crypto sector raises $30.3B in H1 2022
Despite the ongoing bear market, the crypto sector has received investment funding worth $30.3 billion in the first half of 2022, through 1,199 rounds of funding. According to crypto analytics firm Messari and Dove Metrics, the total amount of funds raised in the first six months of 2022 has already outpaced the $30.2 billion raised in the entirety of 2021. The report also shows that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Web 3.0 sectors were the biggest winners of these fundings.
South Korea’s crypto law is in the works
South Korea’s government recently announced that it would consider crypto regulations from the U.S. and other countries in forming its legislation. The country will note the reports from various executive branches in the U.S. in October, following U.S. President Joe Biden’s executive order on digital assets. An estimated 5.6 million people in South Korea trade cryptocurrencies, and the digital assets market was valued in 2021 at more than 42 billion dollars, according to the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU).
Market Moves
Filecoin rallies by over 40%
After six weeks of inactivity, Filecoin’s price surged by over 40% last week and traded at over $11 on Monday. Lately, Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) announced a high-profile partnership with the Harvard Library Innovation Lab (LIL). FFDW said it would support LIL to explore how decentralized and open web technologies can advance the discovery and preservation of human knowledge.
Chiliz surge by over 23% after testnet launch
Crypto sporting project Chiliz witnessed a massive surge in price this week. The surge comes with the launch of the Scoville testnet for Chiliz Chain 2.0. Scoville describes itself as a blockchain for start-up and enterprise-level sports & media organizations. In the past seven days, Chiliz has surged by over 23%, reaching a weekly high of $0.159.
Trending
ِActive Cardano wallets on the rise
Cardano wallets are rising, with the total number of active ADA wallets reaching a new high of 3.5 million. At the same time, there are now over 3,000 smart contracts on Cardano, another important milestone on the network’s growth path.
El Salvador launches a BTC-backed stablecoin
El Salvador launched a new Bitcoin-backed stablecoin. The new stablecoin would be a synthetic dollar collateralized by Bitcoin and pegged to the dollar’s value. The system uses the Lightning Network in order to function, unlike all other stablecoins on the market.
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