Bitget Research: The Middle East, a rising star in the encryption market

Source: Bitget Research

Summary

• The Middle East is an emerging market for Crypto Assets, with an average of about 500,000 people participating in transactions per day in the region at this stage; In terms of regulatory environment, the UAE has the friendliest Crypto Assets policy, while most other Middle Eastern countries have gradually improved their Crypto Assets policies, from early explicit prohibition to gradual compliance; In terms of on-chain preference, users in the Middle East are interested in participating in decentralization projects, are familiar with DEX on-chain tools, and are willing to participate in the Metaverse, games, and on-chain task platforms, and the growth rate of on-chain users has increased significantly in recent years;
• In terms of trading preferences, institutional users in the Middle East mainly invest in core encryption assets such as BTC, and retail investors have a wide range of concerns and are willing to participate in the hype of Meme coins; In terms of Centralized Exchange preferences, the traffic situation in the Middle East has shown a Fluctuation rise trend in the past Centralized Exchange year, and the demand for Centralized Exchange by users in the Middle East is significantly higher than that of DEX;In terms of DEX, users in the Middle East mainly use the DEX of Uniswap, Pancakeswap and other public chain heads;The most commonly used Wallet are TrustWallet, Metamask, Phantom、Coinbase Wallet、Bitget Wallet；
• Finally, combined with the above analysis, Bitget Research has made five predictions for the future trend of the Middle East encryption market.

Beginning

With a long and illustrious history, the Middle East was one of the centers of civilization in the ancient world, and its unique cultural, scientific, and trade traditions have left a lasting impact on human history. In the face of the rise of Crypto Assets, Middle Eastern countries are not far behind, quickly make up for shortcomings in policies and industries, and become rising stars in Crypto Assets.

Although the penetration rate of Crypto Assets in the Middle East is not very high at the moment, its rise rate is very impressive. At present, the vast majority of Middle Eastern users participate in the encryption market by investing in Crypto Assets directly through centralized exchanges.

Through in-depth market research, this article introduces the current situation of the Middle East encryption market in a panoramic way, so as to not only help Middle East users find their own ecological positioning and communities with similar interests, but also help Web3 project teams and encryption institutions better understand and develop the Middle East market.

First, the overall situation of the market

1. Regional Profile

According to the information in Wikipedia, there are 18 countries in the Middle East, combined with the activity of Crypto Assets, this article will focus on 6 countries including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, etc.

**Looking at the overall volume and acceptance of Crypto Assets, the Middle East has not performed well worldwide, with the Middle East and North Africa collectively accounting for about 7.2% of the total amount of Crypto Assets received globally in 2023. But because of its open policy and rapid development, it is still an extremely important part of the encryption world. **Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and UAE ranked 20th, 35th, 47th, 57th, 66th, and 78th according to Chainalysis’ 2023 Adoption Index data rankings.

It is worth noting that there are significant differences in the acceptance of centralized platforms and decentralization applications in different countries in the Middle East. **Egypt, Algeria and Jordan are ranked much lower than their rankings for centralized platforms for Decentralized Finance, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE are significantly better ranked globally for Decentralized Finance use than they are for centralized platforms, and Morocco is relatively balanced, ranking long top 20 in the world for all five aspects of the Adoption Index.

In addition to this, it can be noted that the UAE ranks behind the top 100 in the world for P2P transactions, which may indicate that the UAE is less reliant on P2P in terms of fiat deposit and has a more long and convenient way to deposit out.

2. Encryption policy and human impact

2.1 Encryption policies in Middle Eastern countries

Middle Eastern countries hold different Crypto Assets regulatory attitudes due to their different levels of economic development and Crypto Assets penetration rates. This part introduces the similarities and differences of regulatory policies in the Middle East from “regulatory-friendly”, “policy-shifting”, and “strongly regulatory”. In terms of the countries surveyed, the “regulatory-friendly” countries for Crypto Assets are the United Arab Emirates, the countries with “policy shifts” include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and the “strongly regulated” Middle East countries include Algeria.

[Regulatory Friendly]

The representative of the Middle Eastern country that is Crypto Assets Regulation-Friendly is the UAE, and the UAE Crypto Assets Policy addresses the following:

The financial regulator in the UAE is the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, which regulates and regulates the financial market. ON MARCH 9, 2022, DUBAI ISSUED LAW NO. 4 ON VIRTUAL ASSET REGULATION, ESTABLISHING A NEW REGULATORY BODY CALLED THE VIRTUAL ASSET REGULATORY AUTHORITY (VARA). VARA’s remit includes the regulation of virtual asset service providers throughout Dubai. In addition, the UAE has created various Crypto Assets business-friendly regions through the establishment of financial autonomous regions, RAK DAOs, etc., attracting Crypto Assets companies, talents, and capital influx.

【Policy Shift】

Middle Eastern countries where Crypto Assets policy is shifting are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, mainly in the following aspects:

Saudi Arabia: In 2018, the Saudi government declared the use of Bitcoin illegal, pointing to the potential risks associated with other Crypto Assets trading. Despite this, the country’s Crypto Assets market is still rising. By September 2022, the Saudi Central Bank hired tech entrepreneur Mohsen Al Zahrani as a so-called “encryption chief” to lead the digital transformation of the central banking system. In addition, Saudi Arabia has expressed interest in longing its economy by nurturing Web3 and Blockchain gaming projects. One such project is a collaboration with The Sandbox to explore the metaverse. Egypt: In 2018, Egypt’s leading Islamic legislator, Dar al-Ifta, issued a religious decree classifying Bitcoin business transactions as illegal. But in 2019, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced that it was working on a draft law that would only prohibit the creation, trading, or promotion of Crypto Assets without permission, a statement that revealed CBE’s changing views on Digital Money and Crypto Assets. In 2020, the Egyptian parliament enacted the Central Bank and Banking Law to aid in the digital transformation of Egypt’s banking and financial sector. Jordan: The Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) has enacted legislation prohibiting all banks, coin exchange companies, financial entities, and payment service providers from facilitating any Crypto Assets transactions. Jordan recently said it has a positive attitude towards Crypto Assets and Blockchain technology, seeing it as an opportunity for innovation and growth. Jordan’s Central Bank has said that banks and financial institutions are encouraged to explore and leverage the development of Blockchain technology and digital assets under the premise of complying with relevant regulations. Morocco: In 2017, the Moroccan government announced that Crypto Assets trading was banned in Morocco; in June 2022, the Moroccan Central Bank prepared to draft a Crypto Assets regulation bill; in January 2023, the Moroccan Central Bank published the relevant content of the Crypto Assets Draft, including “Crypto Assets Related Definitions”.

【Strong Supervision Type】

Middle Eastern countries with strong Crypto Assets regulation include Algeria, whose Crypto Assets policies address the following:

• Algeria: Algeria’s 2018 Finance Law prohibits the use of any Crypto Assets. It states: It is forbidden to buy, sell, use and possess so-called Virtual Money. Virtual money is characterized by electronic products that lack physical support.

2.2 Human Impact of Middle Eastern Countries

Muslim countries in the Middle East differ in their policies and attitudes towards Crypto Assets, but in general, their regulation is influenced by Shariah regulations.

From the point of view of Shariah law, because Shariah law has a series of regulations on financial activities, such as prohibiting usury, prohibiting participation in gambling, prohibiting transactions involving illegal and unethical acts, etc. Since the Crypto Assets market has experienced a high degree of Fluctuation and uncertainty, it is not recommended for Muslims to participate in encryption trading with too much Fluctuation due to Islamic traditional canons. However, Crypto Assets, especially assets represented by Bitcoin, have gradually become compliant in recent years, and Muslim countries’ attitudes towards Crypto Assets have begun to change.

Some Muslim countries are also working to develop regulations that adapt to modern financial technology and innovation, and to some extent accept and support the development of Crypto Assets. For example, Dubai in the UAE plans to develop into a hub for Blockchain and Crypto Assets innovation, showing that these Middle Eastern countries are open to these emerging technologies. **

3. Market size

In February 2023, there were about 330,000 Cryptocurrency Trading DAUs on centralized crypto exchanges across the Middle East. With the passage of the BTC Spot ETF and the total market capitalization of the Crypto Assets market continuing to climb, by February 2024, the number of Cryptocurrency Trading DAUs on centralized crypto exchanges in the Middle East will reach about 500,000. **

In February 2024, the Cryptocurrency Trading DAU of users in several countries in the Middle East on Centralized Exchange is roughly in the range of 100,000-150,000 people. It is worth noting that the population of the United Arab Emirates and Morocco is about 1/3 that of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but it has reached the Cryptocurrency Trading DAU, which is not much different. This reflects that the popularity and usage of centralized crypto exchanges in the UAE and Morocco are significantly higher than those in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. **

In the past year, Morocco has seen the fastest year-on-year rise in the number of transacting users in the Middle East, with a rise of 148%, followed by the UAE and Egypt with about 70% of rise. However, Saudi Arabia’s data for February 2024 is flat compared to February 2023, mainly due to the decline in traffic in 3 of the top 5 centralized exchanges with the largest traffic, which may also be caused by Saudi Arabia’s traffic rising cycle earlier than other countries, and longing information sources show that Saudi Arabia is the country with the highest year-on-year rise in Crypto Assets transactions in the world from 2022 to 2023.

Second, the characteristics of local Crypto Assets users

1.User trading habits

1.1 Overall portrait of users in Middle Eastern countries

Image: Middle Eastern Crypto Assets users are accustomed to word clouds

Source: Google Hot Words

Users in the Middle East are open to Crypto Assets trading and project interactions, with the following characteristics as a whole:

• High dependence on CEXs: Middle Eastern users are more dependent on CEXs than DEXs, and terms such as Exchange appear in the word cloud;
• Transfer through Crypto Assets: The penetration rate of users in the Middle East using Crypto Assets to transfer money is relatively high, mainly due to the rapid depreciation of fiat currencies in several countries in the Middle East and the low penetration rate of traditional banks;
• Follow Meme coins: Middle Eastern users have the enthusiasm to hype Meme coins, pay attention to the heat map of the market, and have the ability to quickly grasp the heat of the encryption market;
• Follow TradFi: Blackrock has become a hot search word for users in the Middle East, indicating the impact of Middle East users’ attention to BTC ETF and TradFi on the encryption market.

1.2 Transaction and interaction habits of users in Middle Eastern countries

【United Arab Emirates】

According to a research survey by financial services firm Holborn Assets, users in the UAE are increasingly interested in using Crypto Assets. 29% of users consider Crypto Assets to be a more convenient way to hold assets, 34% are Crypto Assets traders, and 22% use them for daily payments. As an investment attribute, **UAE users are most willing to invest in BTC, ETH, BTC is called “digital gold” by UAE users, 72% of users invest in BTC. **

In terms of interaction habits, UAE users are good at using the trading and lending functions of DEXs, and are familiar with on-chain operations. In addition, UAE users pay attention to the latest things in the encryption market, and pay more attention to projects such as RWA, Metaverse, AI, and cross-chain bridges.

【Saudi Arabia】

According to the Chainalysis report, Saudi Arabia saw a 12% increase in regional Crypto Assets volume between 2023 and 2022. Users in Saudi Arabia invest in the Spot of core Crypto Assets such as BTC and ETH to achieve more long diversification of assets. In addition, institutional users in Saudi Arabia are increasingly interested in investing in Crypto Assets.

In terms of interaction habits, Saudi Arabian users use on-chain DEXs at a lower rate than the world average, but users in the region have shown interest in Metaverse applications, NFTs, such as Sandbox announcing a virtual universe in partnership with Saudi Arabia.

【Egypt】

According to Triple-A survey data, Egypt’s Crypto Assets penetration rate is relatively low, with only 2.95% of Egyptians holding Crypto Assets as of 2022. In terms of transactions, Egyptian users mainly hold BTC, the core reason is to deal with the depreciation of Egypt’s fiat currency. In addition, two-thirds of Egyptian users do not have a traditional bank account, while some users use crypto assets to send money domestically and internationally.

Due to the small number of user samples in Algeria, Morocco, and Jordan, there may be large errors in the summary results, so no specific summary is made.

2. Popular zones and projects

(1) Hot Projects & Hot Zones

Top Projects in the UAE (Q1 2024)

**[UAE]: The main projects and zones that UAE users participate in are DEX, Web3 task platforms and NFT trading platforms. **Among them, the mainstream Token market websites dextool, dexscreener, poocoin, birdeye, etc. are more popular; DEX trading platforms pancakeswap and uniswap are more popular among UAE users; NFT Opensea and magiceden are more popular; Web3 task platform galxe is more popular.

Top Programs in Saudi Arabia (Q1 2024)

**[Saudi Arabia]: Saudi users are highly enthusiastic about participating in DEX transactions, Web3 task platforms, NFT trading and games. **NFT trading is mainly on Opensea and Magiceden platforms; on the other hand, a small number of users use sandbox and Axie, and Web3 task platforms are mainly focused on galxe and zealy.

Top Projects in Egypt (Q1 2024)

**[Egypt]: Egyptian users are more engaged in Web3 games, DEX trading, NFTs, and task platforms. **Sweat Economy is more popular in Egypt, indicating that the M 2 E model is more popular in Egypt; DEXs are mainly market websites and PancakeSwap; in addition to sandboxes in games, the recently hot Pixels also have some attention in Egypt.

Top Programs in Morocco (Q1 2024)

**[Morocco]: Moroccan users participate in NFT and DEX transactions with high participation. **NFT trading is mainly on the Opensea and Magiceden platforms; on the other hand, a small number of users use the Sandbox and Sweat Economy.

(2) Middle Eastern users are most concerned about Crypto Assets topics in the past three months

See what users in the Middle East are looking for with Google Search:

Users in the Middle East search for crypto-related hot words on Google Search

Crypto Assets In the past 3 months (January 5, 2024 – April 5, 2024), users in the Middle East have focused on the following:

（1）BOME：

The hype for Solana meme coins continued throughout Q1, and the Middle East was no exception. The BOOK OF MEME (BOME) issuance by Pepe Meme artist Darkfarm has swept through various social platforms, on-chain 24-hour volume more than $250 million since its launch, and has quickly been launched by major mainstream exchange. However, SLERF, which also has a high degree of discussion, is not on the list in any of the several countries in the Middle East, which to a certain extent means that the transactions of Middle Eastern users mainly occur on the top few centralized exchanges, and there is still a lot of shorts for development in the use of DEX.

（2）RWA（ONDO）：

BlackRock has announced the launch of its first public-on-chain issuance tokenization fund, and the entry of the giant has rejuvenated the second spring of the RWA circuit, which is likely to remain one of the most important narratives of the Bull Market round. Middle Eastern countries have a high search volume for the “RWA” hot word itself, but only ONDO is the Token on the list, and GFI, MKR, etc. are on the list. Combined with the fact that ONDO is also the “No. 5 Google Search Crypto Assets Related Word Search Ranking in Western Europe in Early 2024” in Bitget Research’s Western Europe Market Research Report, it can be seen that ONDO may be one of the flagship tokens hyped for this round of RWA.

(3) Device Mining, mobile phone Mining type Token (ICE, DePIN, Grass, PI) :

Users in the Middle East seem to be very interested in Mining Crypto, with three projects in this space making the list:

(a) an unissued coin cloud computing and network-sharing project, Wynd Network’s flagship product, Grass;

(b) the newly coin mobile phone Mining and the Layer 1 project ICE;

© Pi Network (PI), an early mobile mining project born back in 2018.

3. Local social media

The main battleground for local communities in Arab countries is Twitter and Youtube, and Telegram is less used. The language used is mainly Arabic, but English content is also disseminated to a certain extent.

Blockchain Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates have a certain user base, a wide range of content, and a certain habit of exposing and posting exchange, so the hot alts tracking speed of crypto is very fast, and the exchange hot coin (such as ENA) is highly discussed. However, due to the small user base of Morocco, Algeria and Jordan, there are basically no bloggers in long country, and the content to be followed mainly depends on the content producers of the other three countries.

Third, the competitive landscape and the advantages of each platform

1. Centralized Exchange

**Overall, there has been a clear rise in visits to Centralized Exchange in Middle Eastern countries over the past year. **User Visits(UV) figures were 60% in the UAE and 71% in Morocco, and rise 25% year-over-year in Egypt, while Saudi Arabia saw a slight decline in traffic, likely due to its faster rise cycle of user volume than other countries. (As mentioned earlier, longest sources show that Saudi Arabia is the country with the highest year-on-year rise in Crypto Assets transactions from 2022 to 2023)

**The gap in traffic to Centralized Exchange between important countries in the Middle East is not large. **Even though the total population gap is significant, the four countries of the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia all have about 700,000-1 million monthly UVs visiting centralized exchanges.

**Middle Eastern countries have a high dependence on global centralized exchanges, and local exchanges Rain and M 2 rank outside the top 10 in absolute terms of traffic. **This may be related to the low abundance of local exchange tradable assets, the poor trading Depth, and the easy access to local coin deposit on long global Centralized Exchange.

Note: (1) Due to the lack of mobile web data in Saudi Arabia in February 2024, only the desktop data is presented, if it is assumed that the traffic structure of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is similar, the total UV of the Desktop + Mobile side in Saudi Arabia is about 874, 721 ;(2) The data of Algeria and Jordan cannot be collected, which is not shown here.

2. DEX EXCHANGES

Users in Middle Eastern countries use DEX exchanges more frequently, and the main usage habits are concentrated in Solana, BSC and Ethereum, which are the top DEX exchanges of public chains, such as Uniswap, Pancakeswap, Raydium, etc. Some have also used DEX exchanges to aggregate products, such as 1inch, Jupiter, etc.

Users long most likely to land on these DEX by logging in directly, partly through Google searches, social media links, and redirects to market sites. IT SHOWS THAT USERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST PAY MORE ATTENTION TO POPULARITY IN THE HABIT OF USING DEX EXCHANGES, AND ONCE THEY FORM A HABIT OF USE, THEY WILL HAVE A CERTAIN LOYALTY TO THE BRAND.

DEX EXCHANGE USAGE BY USERS IN UAE, SAUDI ARABIA

U.A.E

DEX Competitive Landscape

The UAE has a relatively high proportion of DEX in Middle Eastern countries, among which UniSwap, PancakeSwap, and 1inch are the DEX products that users use more long. From the perspective of each public chain, the traffic of the DEX at the head of the public chain is relatively high, and the active public chain includes BSC, ETH, SOLANA, COSMOS, etc. Trading habits in the UAE are starting to shift from DEXs to aggregators.

DEX Traffic Ingress

UAE users mainly log in to DEX websites through direct search, it is worth noting that Google search is also the general entrance for UAE users to enter DEX, and CMC, as a Crypto Assets information and information website, also has a large number of traffic and conversions.

Saudi Arabia

DEX Competitive Landscape Summary

Saudi users do not have much difference in the proportion of UniSwap, PancakeSwap and raydium transactions, indicating that Saudi users have great interest in assets on BSC, ETH and SOLANA. THE REST OF THE PUBLIC CHAINS ARE THE TOP DEX EXCHANGES, SUCH AS TraderJoe, Osmosis, etc.

DEX Traffic Ingress

IN TERMS OF SEARCH AND CONVERSION, SAUDI USERS MAINLY ENTER THE DEX EXCHANGE THROUGH DIRECT LOGIN, GOOGLE SEARCH, SOCIAL MEDIA CONVERSION AND CRYPTO ASSETS INFORMATION WEBSITE CONVERSION. The percentage of users in Saudi Arabia who use Twitter is relatively high.

DEX EXCHANGE USAGE BY USERS IN EGYPT AND MOROCCO

Egypt and Morocco

DEX Competitive Landscape Summary

There is a big difference between Egyptian and Moroccan users in terms of trading preferences, with Egyptian users preferring to use PancakeSwap and Moroccan users preferring to use Jupiter. THE REST OF THE PUBLIC CHAINS ARE THE HEAD DEX EXCHANGES, AND THE PERFORMANCE IS MORE PROMINENT. It is worth noting that Egyptian users use Astroport at a higher rate, indicating that users are more interested in the Cosmos ecosystem project. The trading interest of Moroccan users is mainly focused on the Solana chain.

DEX Traffic Ingress

IN TERMS OF SEARCH AND CONVERSION, USERS IN EGYPT AND MOROCCO ARE SIMILAR TO THOSE IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MAINLY THROUGH DIRECT LOGIN, GOOGLE SEARCH, SOCIAL MEDIA CONVERSION AND CRYPTO ASSETS INFORMATION WEBSITE CONVERSION TO ENTER THE DEX EXCHANGE. Among them, Coingecko is more popular with Moroccan users, and CoinMarketCap is more popular with Egyptian users.

Due to the small number of user samples in Algeria and Jordan, there may be a large error in the summary results, so no specific summary is made. Its users’ habits of using DEXs are similar to those of other neighboring Middle Eastern countries.

3. Wallet

Web3 wallet downloads in the Middle East (2024.01.01-2024.03.31)

(Note: Some well-known wallets, such as Binance Wallet and its Centralized Exchange, share the same APP and cannot extract traffic separately, so it is not shown in the table above)

In terms of Wallet usage, Trust Wallet, MetaMask, Phantom, Coinbase Wallet, and Bitget Wallet are the top 5 wallets in the Middle East.

Like longest other regions, Trust Wallet and MetaMask occupy the first and second positions. Trust Wallet, as a wallet launched in 2017, has a good first-mover advantage, its design is simple and easy to use, in line with the habits of users in the Middle East; MetaMask also has a good first-mover advantage, and most projects with longest EVM-compatible public chains will generally consider priority support, which makes these two wallets very popular in the Middle East.

Recently, due to the popularity of the Solana ecosystem, Phantom, as the most popular native wallet on the Solana network, has risen significantly in downloads, ranking third, and it has been circulated in social media that Phantom has the possibility of issuing coins, and many users also tend to use Phantom Wallet to participate in the Solana ecological project under the expectation of Airdrop.

The fourth-ranked Coinbase Wallet is backed by Coinbase, although users in the Middle East cannot use the Coinbase exchanges, but Coinbase Wallet can be used normally, in May 23, coinbase CEO Armstrong introduced Bloomberg in an interview and said that they may set their sights on the UAE to build a bridge between Europe and Asia, so Coinbase Wallet is backed by Coinbase The authority and security have become the choice of many users in the Middle East.

Bitget Wallet is updated and iterated very quickly, currently supporting long 90 public chains, and at the same time, it has an innovative Liquidity aggregation Algorithm in Swap to bring users a smooth trading experience, and also supports functions such as on-chain changes and intelligent market recommendations to assist users in capturing hot projects. Some time ago, Bitget Wallet also launched the BWB Airdrop program, and is currently actively carrying out points activities, which are favored by many users in the Middle East. In terms of NFTs, Bitget Wallet’s NFT marketplace is the first platform to support the purchase of NFTs with any Crypto Assets. Insight into user needs and quick support have led to the fifth highest download ranking in the Middle East.

Summary

The Middle East has a long and illustrious history, having been one of the centers of civilization in the ancient world. In the face of the global rise of the encryption market, Middle Eastern countries have re-examined Crypto Assets with an open and embracing attitude, which has made Middle Eastern countries the fastest growing region in the world in terms of Crypto Assets penetration. This report mainly investigates the Crypto Assets market situation in the six Middle East countries defined by the United Nations from three parts: “Overall Market Situation”, “Local Crypto Assets User Characteristics”, and “Competitive Landscape and Advantages of Each Platform”.

Looking at the overall situation of the market, the overall volume and acceptance of Crypto Assets in the Middle East is in a stage of rapid rise. The “number of daily active users” on Centralized Exchange is about 500,000, with the UAE having the highest Crypto Assets penetration rate in the Middle East.

From the perspective of regulatory and cultural impact, most of the countries surveyed are Muslim countries, and due to the influence of Islamic regulations, encryption policies mainly restrict their citizens’ participation in the encryption market in the early days to protect the rights and interests of local investors. However, with the gradual compliance of core assets such as Bitcoin, it has become an important alternative asset target. The policy of Middle Eastern countries represented by the UAE has gradually embraced Crypto Assets, and the UAE has become one of the most Crypto Assets friendly countries in the world.

Middle Eastern users are open to Crypto Assets trading and on-chain project interactions, with the following characteristics as a whole:

• High reliance on CEXs in general;
• In areas with low penetration of traditional banking services, users transfer money through Crypto Assets;
• Pay attention to Meme coins and grasp the hot assets in the market;

In terms of competitive landscape and platform advantages, global Centralized Exchange services are more long and comprehensive, and still occupy the majority of the market. The data of DEX exchanges is not very different, and the usage habits are concentrated in Solana, BSC and Ethereum, which are the top DEX exchanges of the public chain. In terms of wallets, Trust Wallet, MetaMask, Phantom, Coinbase Wallet, and Bitget Wallet are the top 5 wallets in the Middle East.

Finally, looking ahead to 2024, we expect the following developments in the Middle East market to change for our readers’ reference:

• The UAE is an important base in the Middle East market, not only will it become a central hub for Crypto Assets talents, funds, and encryption companies in the Middle East, but also the encryption influence around the world will become stronger and stronger;
• With the warming of the Crypto Assets market and the increasing penetration of Crypto Assets among Middle Eastern users, the participation in Crypto Assets trading DAU in the Middle East market will continue to pump from 330,000 in 2023 to about 700,000 by the end of 2024;
• The penetration rate of users in the Middle East to participate in various on-chain apps has increased significantly, and “Airdrop” and “on-chain Mining” may become hot words on social media, and the interest in the DePin track will only increase;
• The hype of meme coins continues to rise, and the DEX ecology of the head public chain continues to become a window for users in the Middle East to speculate on meme;
• Wallet with transaction aggregation will be favored by more long users in the Middle East.