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Bahrain-Based Cryptocurrency Exchange Rain Raises $110 Million
The financial injection provided by the Series B funding round is supposed to help Rain double the number of its employees, which currently sits at 400.
After raising $6 million in a Series A led by MEVP in January 2021, Bahrain-based cryptocurrency exchange Rain has another reason to celebrate: the recent $110 million Series B funding round.
Co-led by Paradigm and Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Cadenza Ventures, and others, the round is one of the largest ones for any startup in the Middle East & North Africa.
“We are very excited about this funding opportunity as it allows us to continue conversations with regulators across the MENA region, Turkey, and Pakistan about the benefits and potential of cryptocurrency” stated the co-founding team. “It will also support our overarching mission of providing education and access to cryptocurrency to all of our supported markets”.
Rain was founded in 2017 by Abdullah Almoaiqel, AJ Nelson, Joseph Dallago, and Yehia Badawy. The exchange allows customers from the Middle East to easily buy and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. So far, it has processed transactions worth more than $1.9 billion, serving 185,000 users across 50 countries.
The financial injection provided by the Series B funding round is supposed to help the exchange double the number of its employees, which currently sits at 400.
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“We believe that Rain is a crucial piece of the puzzle for bringing the Middle East deeper into the new crypto economy” said Casey Caruso, investing partner at Paradigm.
Indeed, the interest in cryptocurrency has been booming across the MENA region, with both individual retail investors and institutions embracing cryptocurrencies as the future of finance.
Dubai, for example, wants to become the world’s cryptocurrency capital by creating a comprehensive ecosystem for cryptocurrencies and providers of related services in the form of a special crypto zone at the Dubai World Trade Center.
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Dirham-Backed Stablecoin DDSC Enters Live Phase In UAE
Central Bank approval moves the dirham-backed token into deployment, targeting regulated payments and settlement flows.
The UAE has cleared the launch of DDSC, a dirham-backed stablecoin now entering live operation after approval from the Central Bank. The move pushes the project beyond its pilot phase and into the country’s regulated financial system.
The token is backed by a consortium led by IHC, Sirius International Holding and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), framing it as an institutional instrument rather than a consumer crypto product. DDSC was first announced in April 2025, but regulatory clearance now allows deployment and integration across approved channels.
DDSC runs on ADI Chain, a Layer 2 blockchain built by the Abu Dhabi-based ADI Foundation. The infrastructure is designed for governance and performance requirements expected by large institutions, linking blockchain settlement with existing compliance and oversight frameworks.
The focus is practical, targeting treasury settlements, high-value payments, trade and supply-chain transactions, and programmable financial flows for regulated entities. FAB plans to offer access to the token through approved platforms for its clients, keeping the rollout inside controlled banking environments.
“DDSC marks a defining milestone in the UAE’s digital finance journey,” said Syed Basar Shueb, CEO of IHC. “With the Central Bank’s approval and our transition into live operation, we are delivering trusted, institutional-grade infrastructure that strengthens resilience, accelerates innovation, and expands what is possible in regulated digital payments”.
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FAB says the project reflects how stablecoins can sit within traditional finance when risk controls are built in from the outset. “This milestone underscores that stablecoins can be integrated responsibly into the financial system when built to meet rigorous regulatory and risk requirements,” said Futoon Hamdan AlMazrouei, Group Head of Personal, Business, Wealth and Privileged Client Banking Group at FAB.
The launch reinforces the UAE’s strategy of pushing digital finance through regulation instead of open-ended crypto experimentation. Stablecoins in this model are positioned less as trading assets and more as programmable extensions of national currency, aimed at institutional scale and government use cases.
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