Jibrel: August Update
This August, Jibrel not only released version 3.0.6 of Jwallet for Android but also announced its new project — Jibrel.com — after Jibrel’s acceptance into the 4th RegLab Cohort of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).
Overall Project Status
The primary cross-team focus this month has been on Jibrel.com — a fully-regulated, blockchain-powered private financing platform, and the first of its kind serving Middle Eastern investors and startups alike. The current landing page is the initial step, but the tech, marketing, and business development teams are in the process of assembling the respective components needed for the upcoming phases.
Completed stages include:
1. Regulatory approval: Regulatory approval from Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM)
2. Page launch: Launch of the Jibrel.com landing and registration page
Plans for the coming quarters include:
3. RegLab testing: Issuing legally enforceable equity (or quasi-equity) tokens for an ADGM-registered startup
4. MVP launch: Initial platform launch with basic functionalities (automated investor experience, manual startup on-boarding, no secondary trading)
5. Full platform launch: Primary tokenized listing of startups, plus an active secondary trading market for tokenized equities
These steps are all currently focused on Middle Eastern investors and Middle Eastern startups. While these are the more immediate parts of the roadmap for the next several quarters (through Q1 of 2020), we ultimately aim to build out support for investors and startups from other regions of the world. We also aim to provide support for different classes of tokenized securities, in support of the vision outlined in the Jibrel Whitepaper. The platform looks to streamline the investment process and enhance the efficiency of startup funding lifecycle — making transactions frictionless, more objective, more short-term, and less relationship-centric. The team is thrilled about the project’s overall, and has chosen the Middle East as a starting point, given the supportive legal and regulatory climate, our extensive network in the region, the proportional deficiency of startup funding in the region, and the area’s need for improved democratization of investor access to equity investments.
Tech: Jibrel’s product and development team designed and constructed the responsive Jibrel.com landing page (for desktop and mobile), which includes signup functionality for startups, institutional investors, and retail investors — as well as full multilingual support for English, Arabic, Chinese, and Korean. Additionally, the tech team released version 3.0.6 of Jwallet for Android, which includes:
- New, improved look of the transaction list
- Colorful icons for popular digital assets
- UX and UI improvements
- Indonesian language support (given increasingly reliable traction in the region)
Meanwhile, the tech team continues to work behind the scenes on various other projects, including Jwallet iOS, Jwallet Web, further Jibrel.com updates, Jibrel Search, and other (as yet unannounced) projects.
Marketing: The marketing team has been working on many initiatives, including:
- Jibrel.com: News of our latest project has appeared in a wide array of sources. The news about Jibrel’s acceptance into ADGM’s 4th RegLab Cohort has been featured in FinTech Middle East, Zawya, MAGNiTT, SME10x, and Islamic Business & Finance. The news about the Jibrel.com launch appeared in MAGNiTT, Startup MGZN, Unlock, Blockchain News, and Saudi Gazette (one of Saudi Arabia’s top 30 news outlets), along with at least a dozen other media outlets around the world in English, Arabic, Chinese, and more.
- Jibrel Blog: We continue to release 1–2 blog articles weekly. The focus here is on driving organic traffic to Jibrel’s various offerings and generating long-term incremental increases in organic search traffic to Jibrel overall.
- Jwallet: The Android and iOS versions of the wallet have been steadily climbing in the keyword rankings for relevant search terms. The iOS version ranks in the Top 5 for multiple keywords in India, Germany, Canada, Russia, and the USA. The Android version ranks in the Top 5 for multiple keywords each in Italy, Spain, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, India, Russia, Germany, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, USA, UK, Argentina, Mexico, and more. Additionally, the Android version recently hit Top 100 in the Finance category of the Korean Google Play Store.
- Q&A Session: Jibrel’s founders recently recorded footage together for a Q&A session, addressing community questions and providing a glimpse into the company’s past, present, and future. We plan to release the final video across our various social media channels within a few weeks, before the end of Q3 2019.
Business Development: A reduced summertime schedule affects many of Jibrel’s current and potential enterprise partners globally. However, the business development team has made good progress partnerships for Jibrel.com — encompassing the legal and regulatory side, as well as the startup and investor side. Relatedly, ADGM has recently launched a new suite of digital securities regulations. The new regulations show the potential to accelerate our progress with Jibrel.com and to allow us to conduct the primary listing of securities and facilitate their secondary trading more quickly and efficiently.
Additionally, the team remains in the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) cohort and continues with talks with potential issuers of tokenized assets — including the Gulf Bond and Sukuk Association (GBSA) as well as other confidential contacts that we hope to announce as the relationships develop.
The biz dev team attended the Business Live ME New Age Banking Summit 2019, which focused on how radically changing customer habits and emerging technologies are changing the banking and finance industry. Jibrel additionally plans to attend many events, including:
- September 15: Bloomberg & Global Islamic Economic Summit Fintech Roundtable — Dubai
- September 19: Blockchain and Capital Markets Breakfast Seminar — London
- September 30: Entrepreneurship Summit — Abu Dhabi
- October 21–23: FinTech Abu Dhabi 2019 — Abu Dhabi
- October 25: Fintech Hive Fintalks — Dubai
- December 25: GBSA Gulf Debt Capital Market Summit — Dubai
As summer ends and things kick into a higher gear for enterprises around the world, we look forward to reporting even more progress in the remainder of 2019.
Achievements, Challenges & Limitations
Effective Marketing
The Jibrel team continues to focus on improving its marketing program. This focus represents an ongoing challenge based on several factors — some specific to Jibrel as a company, and others systemic within the overall blockchain and cryptocurrency market.
First, it is crucial to distinguish between products versus infrastructural components within the company. Offerings such as Jcash and Jwallet, while usable on a standalone basis, have more value as infrastructural components within overall products and systems. For this reason, they have not provided a justifiable cost-vs.-benefit case for launching a full go-to-market push or for dedicating other similarly extensive marketing efforts and budget. Infrastructural components contrast with true standalone products such as Jibrel.com. For more information on this theme, be sure to check out the Q&A session with Jibrel’s founders, which will be released before the end of Q3 2019.
Second, Jibrel strives to be cost-effective in its marketing. We deliberately avoid the “glamor marketing” that has often characterized the blockchain industry. Many projects have chosen to pay millions of dollars for exchange listings, and hundreds of thousands of dollars for flashy event installations. However, many such projects are now struggling. For many projects, heavy spending on exchanges has driven little incremental increase in real trading volumes, and often event hype has died away. Additionally, crypto markets remain relatively shallow compared to the rush of activity of 2017. In contrast to many other crypto companies, Jibrel has been focusing on targeted, low-cost approaches while building out usable products and services.
Third, we continue to focus on improving our strategy and optimizing our spend. We have recently restructured the marketing organization — removing some of the full-time salaried work, and supplementing with a remote contractor team on an as-needed basis. We also plan to move offices before the end of the year as an additional cost-cutting measure. These decisions ultimately translate to significant savings that we will be able to re-invest into demand generation for Jibrel’s products and services. Our community might not notice many of these targeted approaches. However, we continue to optimize tactics such as targeted performance-based advertising, niche-oriented digital content, and carefully selected event presences.
Ultimately, the team is looking forward to pouring an increasing amount of time and effort into marketing Jibrel.com — a product with a wide appeal. While Jibrel.com incorporates blockchain, this technology is simply a helpful infrastructural component, rather than the raison d’être of the product. Democratizing startup funding and investor reach in the Middle East ultimately serves an audience far surpassing that of crypto enthusiasts alone. Further, it does so in a way that directly aligns with Jibrel’s initial vision.
Human Resources
While recently needing to let go of several members to optimize budget and output, Jibrel continues to add strategic new hires selectively.
Python Development: Two python developers joined the St. Petersburg office. They will focus on backend development to support Jibrel’s technical infrastructure.
Quality Assurance: Additionally, a quality assurance specialist has joined the St. Petersburg team. This new hire will heighten the attention to detail Jibrel provides throughout the development process of our products and services.
Financial Controller: The Dubai office has hired a financial controller, to increase the financial accountability of the company as a whole, highlight savings opportunities, and improve revenue streams. The financial controller will free up the time of other Dubai team members, who have previously been serving in both financial/operational and business development capacities. Ultimately, this will also allow increased dedication of the other team members to the development of business partnerships focused on the tokenization of securities — especially equities, given the Jibrel.com launch.
Monthly Deep-Dive
Blockchain Adoption: Middle Eastern Countries
Governments around the Middle East are starting to set ground rules for blockchain-based financial transactions as banks are developing exchange systems and incubator projects throughout the region are giving birth to startups developing a variety of commercial applications. Although blockchain is primarily associated with Bitcoin, its uses go beyond cryptocurrency — particularly within markets that require transactional trust between two or more parties. It is estimated that between 10% to 20% of the global economic infrastructure could be running on blockchain-based systems by 2030. Below are some of the most exciting blockchain cases among private and government initiatives in eight Middle Eastern countries.
Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) Launch of “Aber” & Partnership with IBM
The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) and the United Arab Emirates Central Bank (UAECB) are launching the common digital currency project “ Aber.” It will be used in financial settlements between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and UAE to reduce remittance costs as well as enable banks to deal with each other in conducting financial remittances directly. The project will also allow the possibility of a new reserve system for the domestic central payments settlement system in case of their disruption for any reason.
As part of the Saudi Vision 2030 national program, Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Municipality recently declared that it would be forging ties with IBM to work on a strategic plan to integrate blockchain technology in the country. IBM will collaborate with local partner firm Elm Company to put government services and transactions on the blockchain. The ultimate objective of this partnership is to streamline government services to improve efficiency. In 2017, the Saudi government conducted a blockchain boot camp with a special focus on developing decentralized applications (DApps) and Ethereum smart contracts.
Jordan Refugee Centers
The most innovative use case of blockchain currently implemented in Jordan is focused on helping thousands of refugees from Syria — Jordan’s war-torn neighbor. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is using the emerging technology to distribute cash-for-food aid to Syrian refugees in the Hashemite kingdom. The program was implemented in early 2017 to replace food vouchers, and over 100,000 people living in two refugee camps can now purchase groceries using iris-scanning technology at checkout. The platform is built on a private and permissioned blockchain and is also integrated with United Nations High Commissioner to incorporate refugees’ existing biometric authentication technology.
WFP keeps a record of every transaction that takes place in the refugee camps, which allows refugees to have a digital wallet and some sort of identification. This will make it easier for them to participate in the world economy in the future. The WFPA claims that the blockchain-powered system saves on 98% of financial transaction fees in the camp setting and ensures greater security and privacy for Syrian refugees. The international organization is now exploring the use of blockchain for unrestricted cash distributions, starting with mobile money inside the refugee camps.
Tunisia Central Bank Blockchain Adoption
Since 2011, Tunisia has faced economic challenges across various sectors such as Forex. Such troubles have made the Central Bank of Tunisia look towards blockchain to explore the possibility of a national digital dinar to become a cashless economy. The Tunisian central bank has set up a working group to study blockchain, digital payments, and cryptocurrencies. They hope to create the digital currency as a means to fight money-laundering and eliminate the prevailing dark markets in its economy.
Kuwait’s Remittance System
In December 2018, the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) launched a remittance service using blockchain technology from U.S. based Ripple Labs. Since the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) prohibits the banking sector and companies under its control from trading cryptocurrencies, NBK Direct Remit, as the service is known, doesn’t use XRP, Ripple’s native token. Instead, NBK Direct Remit bank customers can transfer fiat currencies through the online banking platform, which incorporates Ripple’s RippleNet blockchain platform. The main feature of this system is that it allows end-to-end visibility of the payment journey. A few months before NBK’s announcement, Kuwait Finance House (KFH) became the first financial institution in the Gulf country to start using RippleNet’s technology for instant international transfers.
Iran’s Banking Platform
Iran is one of the countries in the Middle East to show the most interest in blockchain. Last year, ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi and Ashraf Boroujerdi, head of the National Library and Archives of Iran (NLA), signed a memorandum of understanding to digitize the National Library archives using blockchain.
Additionally, in May, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) started developing a national blockchain project for the finance industry known as the Borna platform. The CBI expects to use it as a central digital platform for Iran’s banking and financial sectors. Using IBM’s Hyperledger Fabric framework, Borna’s aim is to allow the CBI to implement smart contracts while also improving operational transparency in the finance industry. However, the developers of Borna also claim that the platform could be applied outside the banking industry, for uses such as digital identity.
For example, its digital identity solution that is used for banking KYC (Know-Your-Customer) can be used for any other use case that needs a digital identity. The CBI has also collaborated in the establishment of Iran Blockchain Labs — a research, advisory, and innovation hub focused on blockchain technology. Key focus areas of the lab include blockchain-based research, training, consultancy, and facilitating relevant seminars and events to promote a blockchain-aware culture.
Egypt’s Regulatory Reversal
The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has drafted a bill allowing its board of directors to issue rules regulating cryptocurrency trade. The rules are a complete U-turn from last year’s rules, which forbade cryptocurrency trade under Islamic law. Last April, Nile University and the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) launched the first tech-focused incubator in the country specialized in cognitive technologies and blockchain. NU TechSpace, as the center is called, helps startups to improve their products and business models using the university research facilities, in order to increase their opportunities to scale internationally. The idea of starting an incubator was sparked by a rise in blockchain startups across Egypt. With the rise of blockchain applications worldwide, along with the supportive environment in Egypt that fosters entrepreneurship and innovation, this year, many startups started to grow in Egypt using cognitive and blockchain technologies. The creation of the center was announced during Egypt Blockchain Day in 2018.
Turkey Focuses on Import-Export
The Ministry of Commerce is committed to the development of emerging technology and is working around export-import transactions using blockchain. Turkey is collaborating with software companies and countries that are leaders in blockchain, such as Singapore, to expand the technology even further.
Bahrain’s Cryptocurrency Regulations
Most central banks around the world still aren’t convinced of the benefits of digital currencies. However, Bahrain Central Bank (BCB) has issued rules on licensing, governance, and cybersecurity among other crypto asset-related topics. They also created a regulatory sandbox to help boost fintech- and blockchain-related businesses. The program allows companies to test out their services as the country looks into regulating the emerging industry. While initially opposing cryptocurrency as a whole, Bahrain is starting to recognize it as a commodity that will be useful for the region.
Conclusion
Key Takeaways
- Version 3.0.6 of Jwallet Android, released this August, includes a number of UX and UI improvements, as well as language support for Jibrel’s growing Indonesian user base.
- The Jibrel marketing team is making a number of strategic and budgetary shifts in order to keep expenses down while increasing output.
- Jibrel was accepted into the 4th RegLab cohort of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM). This powerful regulatory framework will optimally support Jibrel’s projects focused on the global tokenization and trading of financial assets.
- Our new project, Jibrel.com — a fully regulated blockchain-powered private financing platform — has launched its landing page. Sign up now for early consideration (as a startup or investor), while we gradually roll out the program through Q1 of 2020.
- Support for blockchain is blossoming throughout the Middle East, creating fertile ground for Jibrel’s tokenization efforts in the region.
The Jwallet is the easiest, fastest, and most secure mobile crypto wallet for Ethereum & ERC-20 tokens.
