News Roundup — UAE Introduces Legal Framework for DAOs

Major news stories this week;

1. UAE Introduces Legal Framework for DAOs
2. Microsoft Shareholders to Vote on Bitcoin Integration: Is This a Move Toward Cryptocurrency Adoption?
3. Brevan Howard says significant amount of its crypto trading done from UAE
4. Chainlink co-founder unveils blockchain payments for TradFi
5. Kraken to launch Ink blockchain for DeFi in early 2025

Story Summaries;

1. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has introduced a structured legal framework for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) through the RAK Digital Assets Oasis (RAK DAO). RAK DAO provides legal clarity, liability protection, and off-chain asset interaction to support decentralized organizations. It comes as RAK DAO, a UAE-based Free Zone dedicated to digital asset companies, launched its DAO Association Regime (“DARe”). The DARe framework is particularly noteworthy for its tailored approach, offering two distinct models: Startup DAO and Alpha DAO. The Startup DAO model caters to emerging projects, accommodating organizations with fewer than 100 members. It aims to simplify regulatory processes, allowing new ventures to focus on growth and development within a flexible legal environment. In contrast, the Alpha DAO model targets more mature DAOs with treasuries exceeding $1 million. Specifically, it provides them with the necessary support to scale their operations efficiently.
2. Microsoft shareholders will vote in December on if they include Bitcoin (BTC-USD) on the company’s financial sheet. According to a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on October 24, shareholders will vote on a proposal titled “Assessment of Investing in Bitcoin” during a meeting scheduled for December 10. The suggestion was supported by the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), which highlighted business intelligence firm MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin investment strategy and how it outperformed Microsoft by over 300% this year “despite doing a fraction of the business” of Microsoft. It also stated that institutional and business adoption is becoming more “commonplace” due to spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
3. Brevan Howard does a significant amount of its crypto trading from the United Arab Emirates because of the country's "sensible regulations," an executive from the hedge fund told the AIM conference in Dubai on Monday. "The regulators in the UAE are hard, but they want the industry to fly and so they write sensible regulations and they are prepared to talk to the industry in order to evolve those regulations," Ryan Taylor, group head of compliance at hedge fund Brevan Howard, said during a panel on hedge fund trends and strategies. Taylor said that Brevan Howard's crypto trading operations represented about $2 billion of the firm's total strategies which he said was $35 billion.
4. Decentralized Oracle provider Chainlink will introduce a new blockchain payment solution for financial institutions. In collaboration with Swift, a global messaging network used by banks and institutions, Chainlink revealed a new integration enabling institutions to use Swift messages to interact with blockchain technology. The integration will enable digital asset settlement with minimal adjustments to existing infrastructure while establishing a bridge between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi).
5. Kraken, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX), plans to launch its own blockchain dubbed “Ink” in early 2025, focusing on decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. According to a Bloomberg report, Ink aims to enable users to trade, borrow and lend tokens without intermediaries — taking a step away from the CEX’s current position in crypto and Web3. The anticipated launch of Kraken’s blockchain aims to simplify the DeFi process for a broader audience and make it accessible and cost-effective for users.

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And that’s all for last week’s news! Wishing you a great week ahead!

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