According to Cointelegraph, Akshay Naheta, a former MIT alumnus and SoftBank executive, has launched a Dirham-backed stablecoin called DRAM. The stablecoin aims to provide countries experiencing high inflation with exposure to assets linked to the United Arab Emirates' native currency. DRAM was listed on decentralized finance protocols Uniswap and PancakeSwap on October 3rd.
Naheta is the founder and CEO of Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), an Abu Dhabi-based company that has been developing the technology for a Dirham-backed stablecoin since October 2022. DRAM is an Ethereum ERC-20 token issued by DRAM Trust, a Hong Kong law-governed trust. An independent trustee responsible for approving token mints and burns is reportedly licensed and regulated under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Currently, DTR cannot offer DRAM in Hong Kong or within the United Arab Emirates, but Naheta indicates that conversations are ongoing to provide token liquidity for listing on centralized exchanges outside of those two jurisdictions. Regulatory parameters require that Dirham fiat reserves must be deposited before any DRAM tokens can be minted, with reserves reportedly held by regulated financial institutions.
The DRAM website provides links to the stablecoin's smart contract addresses for Ethereum, BNB, and Arbitrum. The ETH token contract reflects a max total supply of 2 million DRAM at the time of publication, while the ARB contract reflects 499,999 DRAM and the BNB contract holds 2.5 million DRAM.
Naheta shared that the link to AED (Dirham) was driven by the strong performance and attractiveness of the UAE economy and the desire for stable, digital asset investment options around this region. The UAE is emerging as a hub for the nascent cryptocurrency and wider Web3 space due to favorable regulatory frameworks that aim to foster financial innovation and adoption of digital assets.
