The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) announced that 24 participants (the first batch) who were able to pass the strict selection criteria and conditions have joined its Digital Assets Lab, thus starting its first operations, where they can now benefit from the support services provided by the Lab to develop digital solutions and services, test their effectiveness and market them.
Participants in the lab aspire to create transformative solutions with applications across industries, where they will use distributed ledger technology to address current challenges and drive digital transformation in their respective fields. Participants include ALT RealTech, Blade Labs, Polygon and Barteor.
In an effort to enhance the capabilities and potential of the Digital Asset Lab, QFC has partnered with leading international institutions such as Google Cloud, Masraf Al Rayan, Hashgraph Association, and R3, where these strategic partners will provide their expertise, specialized skills, and insights to participants.
The Digital Asset Lab will also provide stakeholders with the opportunity to learn about, experiment with, and identify best use cases for emerging digital technologies such as trade finance, tokenization of real assets, carbon credit tokenization, and various supporting services to support end-to-end tokenization. To facilitate and regulate these processes, the Lab will operate in accordance with the standards and rules set out in the Digital Asset Framework 2024, which was recently issued by the Qatar Financial Centre to provide a secure and transparent ecosystem for digital assets and establish a reliable technological infrastructure.
“We are delighted to launch the Digital Asset Lab with 24 participants who will work on a range of technologies with multiple applications,” said Yousuf Mohamed Al-Jaida, Chief Executive Officer, Qatar Financial Centre. “The efforts and expertise of the lab participants will significantly contribute to enhancing digital asset solutions across industries.”
“The technologies we aspire to develop will support our goal of establishing a flexible and secure financial sector, thus achieving the country’s vision of becoming a vital major hub for wealth management and placing Qatar at the forefront of innovation,” he added.
The Qatar Financial Centre’s Digital Assets Lab was launched in October 2023, with the aim of accelerating the development of a vibrant and diverse digital ecosystem in Qatar, and providing a platform to transform promising digital concepts into advanced and practical technologies that can be used across various industries.
The Qatar Financial Centre provides a unique business platform for companies wishing to establish and operate in Qatar or the region at large. It also enjoys a special legal and regulatory framework, tax system and a well-established business environment that allows up to 100% foreign ownership, 100% profit repatriation and a competitive 10% corporate tax on locally sourced profits. The Centre welcomes all financial and non-financial companies, whether Qatari or international.