Ethereum Leaders Are Slowly Courting Gulf Coast Royals and Investors

Ethereum's leaders are pursuing a "Moonshot" in the Middle East.

The Ethereum Foundation's head of special projects, Virgil Griffith, told CoinDesk the nonprofit is partnering with finance experts in the Gulf Coast to show that the world's second largest blockchain is compatible with Islamic law.

Wan Hafizi Halim, an Islamic finance expert at Amanie Advisors in Dubai, told CoinDesk his firm issued a paper saying ethereum smart contracts can be halal, or compliant with Islamic banking rules.

Halim said the research was conducted at the behest of the Ethereum Foundation, which is spearheaded by ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin.

"What we did with ethereum was just to provide the guidelines," Halim told CoinDesk.

It may not be far-fetched to imagine Gulf Coast royals investing in ethereum projects.

A cryptocurrency trader in Saudi Arabia with knowledge of the local regulatory authorities, who asked to remain anonymous because trading is currently forbidden in the Kingdom, told CoinDesk that Saudi leaders are interested in using ethereum for "National projects that will help the economy."

In the meantime, ethereum's for-profit arm - the ConsenSys venture studio led by ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin - has been establishing connections with Gulf Coast governments as well.

Still, it remains to be seen if Saudi royals will invest directly in any ethereum project.

Ethereum Foundation liaison Atif Yaqub, partner at the London-based crypto and real estate firm UKP Assets, told CoinDesk that ConsenSys isn't involved in his current partnership with Amanie Advisors to develop an ethereum platform for issuing Sharia-compliant financial products and services.