In this episode we speak with Christian Kunz, Head of Group Strategy at DIFC Authority, a leading financial center based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates In his capacity as Head of Group Strategy at DIFC Authority, Christian is responsible to develop and continuously evolve the strategic agenda and initiatives of DIFC in line with the UAE’s commitment to innovation and development of future economies. We start off speaking about the foundations of his experience in the region and work towards the future of fintech, blockchain and crypto within DIFC's ecosystem and the regional market places. If you are looking to know more about regulations, setting up and getting ahead within the region, this episode is a great listen. We want to give a special shoutout to our sponsor Blockfinex. Blockfinex offers one of the most competitive trading fees compared to industry leading competitors as well as a quick onboarding process for its users. You can find them at blockfinex.com Special Guest: Christian Kunz.

Encrypted

#Ep. 81: DIFCs take on building Fintech and Crypto success in MENA

In this episode we speak with Ryan Gill, founder at Crucible. Did you hear about that $69 million NFT sale on Christie’s? Well, we just dove right into NFTs! NFTs or non-fungible tokens are unique digital items that are not interchangeable. We are beginning to see the rise and value of NFTs take off, mostly in the creative industries, where we see digital art, music and other creative work being bought and sold as NFTs. In this episode we explore the state of play of the NFT world and how they have taken the world by storm this past year. Our guest, Ryan goes on to discuss the origins and beginnings of NFTs and the creative industries, namely creators and artists in Hollywood, his former hometown. We continue discussing the potential and opportunity NFTs hold for creators that have been traditionally left out of the spotlight and off the stage. Ryan describes how new and young creators can take work into their own hands and start making a living for themselves without necessarily needing to answer to the current “gatekeepers” of the creative industry. Ryan shares the work they are doing at Crucible and his vision for the platform and how it will contribute to a larger paradigm shift of what he calls an Open Metaverse. We also touch on the future of NFTs and how the world will look in a decade’s time because of this new technology. We want to give a special shoutout to our sponsor Blockfinex. Special Guests: Ryan Gill Special Guest: Ryan Gill.

#Ep. 80: NFTs - The Direct to Avatar Economy & The Open Metaverse

In this episode we speak with Saqr Ereiqat, consultant at IBM and Akbar Farook, founder of Just Chain, a justice in the public blockchain space solution. We start off speaking about what blockchain applications are currently live in the region and where enterprise utilizes blockchain for the betterment of business. Saqr and Akbar both share their views on the current state of blockchain use in the Middle East and general region. We go on to discuss the challenges of raising funding for Proof of Concept projects. Both our guests walk us through their experiences in each of their domains and advise companies on how best to approach funding for a POC. Finally we discuss what adoption of blockchain technology will look like, specifically for enterprises. We want to give a special shoutout to our sponsor Blockfinex. Blockfinex offers one of the most competitive trading fees compared to industry leading competitors as well as a quick onboarding process for its users. You can find them at blockfinex.com Special Guests: Akbar Farook and Saqr Ereiqat.

#Ep. 79: Scalability and Advancement of Enterprise Blockchain

In this episode, we hear from one of the most influential figures in the space, Paolo Ardoino who is the CTO of Bitfinex and Tether. In the beginning we discuss Paolo's background and his vision for the space. We then delve into the rise of DEXs and how decentralised vs centralised exchanges will fair in the years to come. Paolo shares what his vision for a decentralised exchange will look like and lays out Bitfinex's plans for doing so. We also touch on the heavy stablecoin topic. We hear Paolo's views on the future of stablecoins, the differences between the various forms of stablecoins we see today, and also USDT's future roadmap. Paolo also shares recent updates with regards to the New York Attorney General's lawsuit against Tether and we discuss misconceptions that have arisen about Tether. Additionally, we discuss the technical aspects of Tether's tech stack, specifically with regards to layer 2 and scalability. Finally, we discuss the role of Defi and what this means in the context of Bitfinex and Tether. We want to give a shout out to our sponsor Blockfinex (Not to be confused with Bitfinex). Blockfinex is the Global cryptocurrency exchange where you can trade your cryptos in seconds. With one of the fastest matching engines in the space, and high liquidity, you can trade your favourite cryptocurrencies quickly and seamlessly. Blockfinex offers one of the most competitive trading fees compared to industry leading competitors as well as a quick onboarding process for its users. You can find them at blockfinex.com Special Guest: Paolo Ardoino.

#Ep. 78: Tech Scoop on Bitfinex and Tether from Stablecoins to Global Decentralised Liquidity

This is another excellent episode from the Future Blockchain Summit which was part of GITEX in Dubai, one of the only in-person events that has taken place during COVID times. Our guests for this episode are Thamim Ahmed from UCL Center for Blockchain Technologies and Dotun Rominiyi from the emerging technology division at the London Stock Exchange. We talk about the rise of reasearch and development leading into emerging and new technologies to drive adoption in enterprise. We cover financial securities and tokenisation, how ideation leads to solid research and then real world products. We talk about how the London Stock Exchange moved from paper to digital and how it now is working towards a future that embraces next generation infrastructure and digital tranformation. If you are looking to understand more about how the London Stock Exchange and UCL view blockchain and cryptocurrency, then this episode is definitey for you. We want to give a shout out to our sponsor Blockfinex. Blockfinex is THE Global cryptocurrency exchange where you can trade your cryptos in seconds. With one of the fastest matching engines in the space, and high liquidity, you can trade your favourite cryptocurrencies quickly and seamlessly. Blockfinex offers one of the most competitive trading fees compared to industry leading competitors as well as a quick onboarding process for its users. You can find them at blockfinex.com Special Guests: Dotun Rominiyi and Thamim Ahmed.

#Ep. 77: The rise of institutional adoption in crypto and blockchain

We're super excited to be recording this episode live at the Future Blockchain Summit which was part of Gitex 2020 in Dubai, one of the only in-person events that took place in this crazy 2020 year. Our guest for this episode is Vesa, a Finnish artist who has had a unique journey following his interests throughout his life. After stumbling into art, and finding his hidden talents there, Vesa has helped to pioneer digital art which is now seeing tremendous growth in the crypto sphere. Vesa is unique in that he embraces both the physcial and digital forms of art, where his physcial copies go for a rate at 1 btc per piece (thats $19,200 at time of writing!) We really enjoyed this episode as we discuss the early forms of digital art, what the transition of art will look like from the physical to digital realm, how will digital art be used and look like in the context of NFT (non fungible tokens), VR and AR, and how people can get involved! We want to give a shout out to our sponsor Blockfinex. Blockfinex is THE Global cryptocurrency exchange where you can trade your cryptos in seconds. With one of the fastest matching engines in the space, and high liquidity, you can trade your favourite cryptocurrencies quickly and seamlessly. Blockfinex offers one of the most competitive trading fees compared to industry leading competitors as well as a quick onboarding process for its users. You can find them at blockfinex.com Special Guest: Vesa.

#Ep. 76: The humble beginnings of crypto art and its meteoric rise

In this episode we talk public relations and the blurring lines of promoting, community engagement and shilling. Our guests are Mohanned Halawani, founder of Crypto-PR.io and David Wachsman Founder and CEO of WACHSMAN. Both our guests are leaders in the Crypto and Blockchain space for communications. This was a great episode for us, both Ahmed and I really enjoyed challenging Mohanned and David to the perception and roles of PR in the industry. If you are looking to leverage PR and comms for your own project or want to know how agencies perceive the space then this episode is for you. We want to give a shout out to our sponsor Coinsapp, a global social payments application for cryptocurrencies based on the Dan blockchain ecosystem. It empowers the world to send money around the world in seconds. You can find coins app on google and Apple stores. https://coins.app/ Special Guests: David Wachsman and Mohanned Halawani.

#Ep. 75: Crypto Communications - How PR can make or break projects

In this episode we have special guest Joe Lallouz, CEO and Co-founder of Bison Trails. In this talk, we deep dive into what running a remote company is like, the transition from physical to remote, how to maintain strong leadership virtually, and more importantly how to retain talent (and how to peacefully allow your good ones to leave if they have an entrepreneurial bug!) There were so many awesome nuggets shared by Joe in this episode even way before we talked about crypto! On the crypto side, Joe dives into what Bison Trails are doing and how they are helping to achieve a robust infrastructure set up to ensure blockchains can be easily secured and anyone can easily set up and run a node! This core infrastructure is crucial to the development and uptake of blockchain networks, where we learn how Bison Trails are leading the pack in this area. So many things and more in this episode of Encrypted! This is absolutely the episode for you if you are looking to know more about running a remote company, leading in a virtual world, a crypto entrepreneur or a project/fund/exchange needing core infrastructure services. We hope you enjoy the episode and many thanks again to our wonderful sponsor, CoinsApp! You can find out more at https://coins.app/ Special Guest: Joe Lallouz.

#Ep. 74: Build it and they will come - How one firm is designing chain infrastructure to enable you to scale

Todays episode is a great mix of enterprise scaling of tokenised securities and the blending with DeFi. We have the co-founders from Securrency, a leading blockchain and crypto technology platform helping transform the digital securities industry. Having started this journey long before ICOs/IEOs and many of form of security or utilities tokens starting gaining steam, John Hensel and Dan Doney began their journey to build their interoperable and very versatile financial supply chain infrastructure. With a big focus on compliance and meeting regulatory requirements they are leading the way in enabling cross chain, cross border and cross regulation movement. And with the growth in DeFi and CeFi they are well positioned to be ready for the future of digital finance across the globe. This is absolutely the episode for you if you are looking to know more about becoming friends with regulators and building long term visions for you blockchain and fintech business. We hope you enjoy the episode and many thanks again to our wonderful sponsor, CoinsApp! You can find out more at https://coins.app/ Special Guests: Dan Doney and John Hensel.

#Ep. 73: Blending Securities and Defi - Bringing reg tech into CEFI & DEFI

We're super excited to have Danny Oyekan on this episode today. He has been slowly and quietly building his own blockchain empire and ecosystem through a variety of ventures he is spearheading, one of which is CoinsApp, which is one of the sponsors of this show! In this episode, we hear more about CoinsApp and the incredible traction it recieved post launch, how they're disrupting the remittance industry and hearing the low down about blockchain and crypto in Africa. We also discuss the Defi craze and when the crypto market will be maturing because quite frankly this Defi craze is showing that we are still some time away from any maturity. We hope you enjoy the episode and many thanks again to our wonderful sponsor, CoinsApp! You can find out more at https://coins.app/ Special Guest: Danny Oyekan.

#Ep. 72: Connecting Africa to the World with Danny Oyekan

In this episode, we uncover the story of how Barbados set its sights on creating a digital dollar and how this set the course for a legal central bank digital currency across the Caribbean. We speak to 3 amazing guests, Dr. Delisle Worrell (the Former Governor of the Barbados Central Bank), Gabriel Abed (Founder of Bitt.com) and Simon Chantry (CBDO at Bitt.com). The three share with us stories from the past of how Bitt.com came about, how the idea of a Central Bank Digital Currency came to light and how Dr. Delisle Worrell as the Governor of the Central Bank gave Gabriel and his team the nod of approval to build out this concept. We dive deeper into how the events unfolded over the years, what the future holds for CBCDs and how Bitt.com plans to implement CBDCs across the Caribbean. All this and more on this episode of Encrypted! If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word and hitting that subscribe button! This episode is sponsored by CoinsApp! Special Guests: Dr. DeLisle Worrell, Gabriel Abed, and Simon Chantry.

#Ep. 71: The Nod of Approval - How Bitt pioneered the world's first concept of a blockchain Central Bank Digital Currency

We speak to Arif Khan, CEO and Founder of Alethea.AI, which is a blockchain marketplace for synthetic media. We discuss all things under the sun related to synthetic media, specifically AI generated content. With the drop in costs of computing power, according to Moore's Law, this allows people to experiment with new technology and in this context AI generated content. This is where you have fully AI generated audio, videos and imagery leading people to experiment to create content without needing a particular person in the flesh. Take Alethea.AI's recent demo of Ex-President Obama where you see a virtual baby face Obama reading a script in a voice resembling much like his actual voice which was all created through AI. Essentially you can use Obama's voice to say anything you want! Of course, there are many implications of this, and Arif shares the good and the bad that can arise and the future demands we may see from such a technology, in particular the various use cases that can arise. Arif argues that the model of Cut, copy and paste of text transformed our lives, and we're able to do this with cut, copy and paste of a face. Think of how movies, individuals, influencers, can create tell and share new stories. Weird right and if you want to get weirder, think Black Mirror! Arif further argues how during a pandemic, AI generated content becomes more feasible for celebrities and brands to work together. We talk about how this is connected to blockchain and why it would enhance the technology further and enable its widespread adoption. This is an amazing episode where we learned so much about a new technology, the potential market for it, use cases for our private lives and businesses and how this could truly impact society in the long run. Special Guest: Arif Khan.

#Ep. 70: AI Generated Content - The Why, What and How

In this episode we have special guests Maja Vujinovic, Ex CIO of Emerging tech globally for GE Digital and Vinny Lingham, Founder and CEO of Civic. With the world living through a pandemic, economic uncertainty and political upheaval through the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S., we discuss how the world is becoming divided and old traditions being highly questioned. We first talk about vaccinication where Vinny walks us through how vaccination will become an underpinning factor for our digital lives and future digital identities. We explore the opportunities, risks and implications of such a system that should be private and free from government control to protect user data. Maya with her background in tech and operations shares her experience and the advice and considerations she proposes to governments, leaders and private corporations, particularly around tech ethis. We also discuss the ideas around biohacking and relevant solutions that Maja has been working on. With the increasing need of digitization in this COVID19 reality, we also discuss how blockchain is increasingly significant as the technology already exists but needs open mindedness, structural change and acceptance. If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word and hitting that subscribe button! Special Guests: Maja Vujinovic and Vinny Lingham .

#Ep. 69: A World Divided - Covid19 is the World's Chief Digital Officer

Encrypted is excited to partner up with the Future Blockchain Summit who have recently held their first ever Digital Keynote! Digital Keynote, a live webinar series dedicated to tackling and exploring the world of Blockchain. Join us as we discuss with foremost experts from around the globe and break down topics such as Blockchain Development, Use cases, Tokenization , Sustainability, Business Networks and more. In this episode of Encrypted, we are sharing the Digital Keynote as a podcast on our channel, to share with our community and audience! In this episode we have superstar speakers from the United Nations, Ant Financial and Swedish Government, moderated by a world-famous radio host & TEDx Speaker all debating on how Blockchain technology will be leveraged to fight the economic collapse caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Key takeaways from this panel includes: Innovation and adoption has to come from both government/public sector and the private sector Actual serious adopotion after pilot project/demos is still low Blockchain has a marketing problem If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word and hitting that subscribe button! Special Guests: Ben Treganna, David Suomalainen, Ken Rutkowski, and Tony Sun.

#Ep. 68: Digital Keynote - A Global Economic Crisis is Looming, Now the Time for Blockchain to Leave Self Isolation

Ahmed sits down with Mohamed Abdou, the founder and CEO of Pravica where they discuss a wide range of topics ranging from privacy centric apps being accessible to millions, the opportunities blockchain represents, how it is perceived in emerging countries like Egypt, where do we expect to see adoption coming from and all the learnings Mohamed has had building a Web 3 start up in MENA. All this and more on this episode of Encrypted! If you liked what you heard, please do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and the other platforms. Don’t forget to support us by spreading the word and hitting that subscribe button! Special Guest: Mohamed Abdou.

#Ep. 67: Web3 + Egypt + Global Users = Next Gen Privacy Email

Interested in what is going on in the world of blockchain and crypto assets? Want to understand how the most pioneering entrepreneurs, enterprises and governments are creating the digital economies of the future? Involving a range of superb guests of likeminded innovators, enablers, investors, government officials, executives and more, Encrypted takes you on a journey to make sense of what is going on in the Wild West of cryptocurrencies, understand valid use cases of blockchain technology and how various industries could be impacted. Encrypted is Dubai based, and the first podcast dedicated to blockchain and crypto in the MENA region, so expect to hear interesting stories, and people from this side of the world. 

#Ep. 81: DIFCs take on building Fintech and Crypto success i...