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When we launched The Crypto Radio last summer in Dubai, the weather was hot and the energy levels were high. Here we were in a city with ambitions to become the leading crypto hub in the world.
From its forward-thinking regulatory framework to free zones that encourage crypto entrepreneurs, Dubai is busy laying the groundwork to achieve a mission. But was it the right place to launch the world’s only radio station dedicated to crypto and the blockchain?
At the same time as our “baby” started to take shape, an exciting new financial media company called Moniify was also launching in Dubai, bankrolled by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris. It was hiring aggressively, had big budgets and would cover crypto as part of its remit.
We weren’t worried – quite the opposite. The creation of Moniify supported our decision to base ourselves in Dubai, and we felt the market was growing fast enough to accommodate both new media outlets. Moniify has since downsized significantly – but that’s another story.
In the early days, there was a lot of “strategising” about where to locate studios around the world while we were still building up the team in Dubai.
The US was a natural choice, we felt, but there were doubts, given the rough treatment it was receiving from financial regulators. India was another option given its high crypto adoption rates, tech-savvy and young population, and source of cheap labour. Even Bali was in the mix.
But our thinking remained that Dubai was still the perfect place for The Crypto Radio’s main hub. Strong government support, zero taxes, clear regulation plus initiatives such as the Dubai Metaverse Strategy supported the choice. Then we have the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre and its crypto hub, a new 17-storey tower under construction. A lot is happening here, both offline and online.
Word about our radio station started to spread and we soon found ourselves with a guest list of crypto and blockchain experts who wanted to come in for interviews.
Dubai-based guests and perspectives were taking up too big a share of airtime and the global goggles had to go on
From Dubai Blockchain Center to CoinMENA, many experts were on our doorstep. But of course, they all wanted to talk about how great Dubai and the UAE are when it comes to crypto. That made sense given the friendly environment we have here. But it’s a narrative that doesn’t work globally. We had to explain that we are a global online radio station – we don’t just cover Dubai and UAE digital asset news.
When a guest says, “I really like what VARA (the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority) is doing,” someone in the US has no idea what they are talking about.
And when another guest comments, “Dewa has started using the blockchain,” a listener in India is clueless. Plus, pretty soon we’d exhausted our Dubai-based crypto guest database.
This “home bias” is something I encountered when I worked for the BBC in Singapore. While we covered business news from across Asia, a disproportionate number of stories were written about the tiny city-state. The argument was that even though Singapore has an economy that only scrapes into the top 30 globally, it is an important hub for expatriates and global companies looking for an Asian base.
So it was that Dubai-based guests and perspectives were taking up too big a share of airtime and the global goggles had to go on. This came at the same time as Donald Trump won the US election in November, and a much brighter crypto future loomed for America. Given the time difference, our focus shifted more towards the US, which meant regular late-night interviews. The Crypto Radio is still pre-recorded, although the plan is to go live eventually.
But then we realised we also had a steady stream of global experts coming to Dubai to attend the many crypto, blockchain, Web3 and artificial intelligence summits the emirate hosts.
Eric Trump made a guest appearance in Abu Dhabi for Bitcoin MENA while Binance founder Changpeng Zhao spoke at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai.
Meanwhile, OKX, one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges, received a licence to operate in Dubai, so we grabbed an interview with founder Star Xu. Dubai was turning out to be the perfect spot to launch a global crypto radio station.
As I write this, the Dubai Land Department has just launched a pilot project to tokenise real estate, which, hopefully, will bring fractional property ownership to the masses. This is another example of how forward-thinking the emirate is when it comes to virtual assets.
So, while basing ourselves in Dubai seems to have been the right decision, calling ourselves The Crypto Radio is up for debate. Our content has evolved into more than just crypto coverage, but we have learned that radio may not be the best platform for the bros – just search “crypto” on YouTube and look at the number of views.
There could be a good reason why there hasn’t been a radio station dedicated to crypto and blockchain before. The jury is out, and so am I.
Justin Harper is a business journalist and editor with more than 20 years of experience across London, Singapore and Dubai. He is a co-founder of The Crypto Radio but stepped down as its head of content
