Written by: Joe Zhou, Foresight News
This is my first time in Dubai, and it seems quite different from what I've seen on media platforms.
During the two days after landing, my itinerary included: Dubai Financial Center (DIFC), shopping mall (Dubai Mall), resort center (The Palm), and visiting offices of three top crypto exchanges, experiencing the work and life atmosphere of Dubai's Web3 community up close.
However, after walking around, I couldn't find a single BTC ATM, didn't see any street vendors with USDT payment QR codes, and hadn't spotted any roadside advertisements for crypto companies. This was vastly different from the articles about "Dubai Web3" I had seen online.
Yet, when I paused to try living here, I gradually began to feel how Web3 is integrating with Dubai, this global financial center. A friend playing ball with us who was sick opened a Dubai online shopping app to buy medicine and saw an advertisement for crypto exchange OKX; another friend living in Dubai told me that Dubai's streets and offline spaces have massive advertisements for crypto companies like XRP, though the offline advertising volume is relatively restrained compared to many countries and regions, so they aren't ubiquitous like in some cities.
I know that five short days are insufficient to fully understand how Dubai accepts cryptocurrencies and integrates them into daily city life, so I invited a "Dubai local native" Sherif Sanad for an interview. He is also the Country manager for HashKey crypto exchange in the Middle East and North Africa, and we discussed the "Dubai crypto ecosystem" from local people's perspective.
[The rest of the translation continues in the same professional and accurate manner, maintaining the original structure and meaning while translating to English.]
