Author: Emirates Insight
The money is easy to trace. Scroll back through tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s political donations and you’ll soon hit US$15 million worth of transfers sent to Protect Ohio Values, JD Vance’s campaign fund. The donations, made in 2022, are a staggering contribution to an individual senate race, and helped put Vance (Thiel’s former employee at tech fund Mithril Capital) on a winning trajectory. But if money matters, so do ideas. Scroll back through Vance’s speeches, and you’ll hear echoes of Thiel’s voice. The decline of US elites (and by extension, the nation) is supposedly a result of technological stagnation: declining…
Hyundai Motor Group said it has completed a hydrogen mobility trial in Trojena, a mountainous region of Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion NEOM development, marking the first deployment of hydrogen-powered vehicles in high-altitude terrain. The trial, conducted in partnership with Enowa, NEOM’s energy and water subsidiary, involved operating Hyundai’s UNIVERSE fuel cell electric coach bus on routes reaching elevations of 2,080 meters and gradients of 24 per cent. The vehicle simulated passenger transport between NEOM’s future core business district and Trojena. The tests follow a memorandum of understanding signed in September 2024 between Hyundai Motor Group and NEOM’s Mobility sector to…
Blockchain analytics firm Arkham has revealed that a previously unknown hack of Chinese mining pool LuBian in December 2020 resulted in the theft of 127,426 BTC worth around $3.5 billion at the time. This makes it the largest crypto theft in history, Arkham stated, and the haul today would be worth a whopping $14.5 billion. “Neither LuBian nor the hacker has publicly acknowledged the hack,” the firm stated. BREAKING: ARKHAM UNCOVERS $3.5B HEIST – THE LARGEST EVER LuBian was a Chinese mining pool with facilities in China & Iran. Based on analysis of on-chain data, it appears that 127,426 BTC…
All aboard: The Ruler of Dubai experiences the future of UAE travel first-handHis Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, took a significant step into the UAE’s transport future this week — by boarding a passenger train on the Etihad Rail network from Dubai to Fujairah.The journey served as a real-time inspection of progress on the Etihad Rail passenger line, a project that is set to redefine how the UAE moves by connecting cities, boosting tourism, and supporting economic growth. Passenger operations are set to launch in 2026,…
White-collar crime surrounding cryptocurrencies was rampant in the early days of the industry. Still, the law is continuing to crack down on those who took advantage of the lack of regulation available at the time. What was touted as innovation turned out to be a scheme used to fund a person’s lavish lifestyle. Justice Served The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of California shared a press release confirming that Rowland Marcus Andrade, CEO and Founder of the now-defunct AML Bitcoin token, was guilty of wire fraud and money laundering. The jury in the trial, which began earlier in March and…
The International Monetary Fund has revised its 2025 global growth forecast to 3 per cent, up from 2.8 per cent in April, citing stronger-than-expected trade activity, improved financial conditions, and easing tariff tensions between the United States and its trading partners. However, the Fund warned that this resilience remains “tenuous” amid high uncertainty, elevated public debt, and geopolitical risks. In its World Economic Outlook Update released on Tuesday, the IMF projected global growth would rise slightly to 3.1 per cent in 2026, still below both the pre-pandemic average of 3.7 per cent and the 3.3 per cent seen in 2024.…
You may know about Verizon Small Business Digital Ready from its $10,000 small business grant program and the deep catalogue of events and courses that teach entrepreneurs the skills they need to succeed. But did you know about the program’s Small Business Funding Marketplace? Verizon has partnered with Next Street to offer the Small Business Funding Marketplace. It’s a tool designed to empower small businesses by providing a curated set of small business loans and grants in one streamlined marketplace. Entrepreneurs and small business owners can use the tool to filter across many small business capital providers and financial products…
Now, what that means is that the total amount of circulating stablecoins of these eight denominations (e.g., USDT) was collectively worth approximately $245 billion US dollars, according to CoinMarketCap data as of the time of this writing. Stablecoins Compared To US Dollar Base Supply Stablecoins are already a significant part of the financial economy in 2025, and the world’s central banks and the IMF recognize that there’s a real presence in the blockchain sector. For a useful baseline comparison, the total adjusted monetary base of US dollars in circulation plus reserve balances was $5.7 trillion at the same time. With…
In a landmark financial move that reinforces its global ambitions, Joyalukkas, one of the world’s largest jewellery retailers, has secured an AED 500 million working capital facility from Emirates NBD. The deal marks a major milestone in the jeweller’s journey, enabling it to accelerate its long-term expansion plans across the GCC, as well as key international markets such as the United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US), Canada, and Australia. The agreement is designed to provide Joyalukkas with streamlined and flexible access to capital. It allows the company to draw and repay funds on a revolving basis, improving cost-efficiency and…
A Canadian teen has been sentenced for a $37 million Bitcoin (BTC) heist and the hacking of several X accounts. This follows on-chain sleuth ZachXBT’s calls for stricter penalties against SIM swapping and social engineering fraudsters. Suspect’s Sentence ZachXBT revealed via a July 29 X post that Cameron Redman had been convicted and ordered to pay compensation following his involvement in a $37 million Bitcoin theft and a related X hacking case that the investigator had uncovered. Court documents show that Redman has been sentenced to 12 months and 1 day, followed by a three-year supervised release term for each…