A former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alumnus and SoftBank executive has launched a dirham-backed stablecoin aimed at giving countries plagued by a high-inflation environment access to assets tied to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) fiat currency.
Cointelegraph contacted Akshay Naheta, co-founder and CEO of Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), and subsequently announcement The DRAM stablecoin was listed on the decentralized finance protocols Uniswap and PancakeSwap on October 3.
The Abu Dhabi-based company has been developing dirham-backed stablecoin technology since October 2022. Naheta relaunched DTR in the jurisdiction, which he helped co-found in Switzerland in 2019.
DRAM is an Ethereum ERC-20 token issued by Hong Kong-based Dram Trust, and the independent trustee responsible for approving the minting and destruction of tokens is reportedly licensed and regulated by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Currently, DTR is unable to offer DRAM in Hong Kong or the United Arab Emirates, but Naheta said that conversations are ongoing to provide liquidity for the token to be listed on centralized exchanges outside of the two jurisdictions.
Regulatory parameters require that before any DRAM tokens can be minted, legal reserves of dirhams must be deposited, with the reserves reportedly held by regulated financial institutions.
The DRAM website also links to the stablecoin’s smart contract address Ethereum, BNB smart chain and Decide. As of publication, the maximum total supply of the Ethereum token contract is 2 million DRAM, the maximum supply of the Arbitrum contract is 499,999 DRAM, and the maximum supply of the BNB smart chain contract is 2.5 million DRAM.
A background search by Cointelegraph found that the decentralized technology research center was launched in Switzerland four years ago.
this Company continues to develop decentralized payments The system, called Unit-e, is designed and built Developed by many academics and developers through collaborations and funding from renowned academic institutions such as Stanford University, MIT, and the University of Illinois.
Cointelegraph confirmed that Naheta founded DTR during his tenure at SoftBank. DTR’s Unit-e project is a scalable decentralized payment network built Developed by a development team based in Berlin.
“The original goal in 2019 was also to disrupt payments and create a protocol with very high throughput and significant cost efficiencies.”
Naheta shares full details of the company’s efforts in “Predecessor” generalize Unit-e protocol reviewed by University of Illinois researchers. The team currently building the DRAM stablecoin has about 30 permanent employees and contractors.
Naheta said that while DTR is unable to sell DRAM in the UAE, the company anticipates demand from companies in the region that are dealing with high inflation and currency issues:
“The association with the dirham is driven by the strong performance and attractiveness of the UAE economy and the desire for stable digital asset investment options in the region.”
The UAE is becoming a hub for emerging cryptocurrencies and the wider Web3 space thanks to a favorable regulatory framework aimed at promoting financial innovation and digital asset adoption.
Companies such as Coinbase and other major exchanges have been openly talking about future operations in the jurisdiction, while industry heavyweight Binance already operates in Dubai.
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