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- MENA’s annual onchain crypto volume has risen to roughly $350 billion.
- Turkey remains the largest regional market, approaching $200 billion annually.
- Saudi Arabia leads growth at 154% year over year, followed by Qatar at 120%.
- The UAE processed approximately $150 billion in crypto transactions during 2025.
The Middle East and North Africa is developing into one of the world’s fastest-growing digital-asset regions, but the forces driving adoption differ sharply across its major markets. Annual onchain transaction volume has climbed from roughly $100 billion in 2022 to an estimated $350 billion by 2025-2026, according to a September 4 analysis from the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI). Turkey remains the region’s largest market by transaction value, while Saudi Arabia and Qatar are recording the fastest growth as Gulf governments build regulated digital-finance ecosystems.
One Region, Two Different Crypto Markets
The $350 billion headline masks an increasingly important divide inside MENA.
In countries facing currency depreciation, sanctions or geopolitical instability, crypto is being used partly as an alternative financial rail. BPI points to Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon and Iran, where weakening currencies have increased interest in Bitcoin and U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins as tools for preserving purchasing power and transferring value.
The Gulf presents a different picture.
In Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, adoption is increasingly connected to institutional participation, financial regulation and government-backed digital transformation rather than primarily to escaping weak domestic currencies.
That difference helps explain why transaction growth alone does not capture what is happening across the region.
One part of MENA is using digital assets defensively, while another is building infrastructure intended to bring them deeper into regulated finance.
Turkey Still Dominates, but the Gulf Has the Momentum
Turkey remains the largest crypto economy in the wider region, receiving nearly $200 billion in annual transaction value
Its position is closely linked to a long-running preference for crypto as an alternative store of value during periods of lira weakness.Earlier Chainalysis research similarly found strong Turkish demand for stablecoins, connecting their popularity with inflation and currency volatility.
But the fastest expansion is now concentrated farther south.
- Saudi Arabia: Crypto activity increased 154% year over year, the fastest rate in MENA.
- Qatar: Transaction activity grew 120%, putting it second in the region.
- UAE: Approximately $150 billion in crypto transactions were processed during 2025.
- Turkey: Nearly $200 billion in annual volume keeps it comfortably ahead in absolute transaction value.
Saudi Arabia’s acceleration is particularly striking because the country has not built its crypto profile around the same licensing strategy as Dubai.
Instead, BPI points to favorable demographics and heavy investment in blockchain, fintech, gaming and central bank digital currency infrastructure. Smartphone penetration is around 97%, while more than 60% of Saudi citizens are under 35.
That gives the kingdom a large digitally native population at the same time that Riyadh is trying to broaden its financial sector beyond traditional banking and energy.
The UAE Shows What Institutional Crypto Adoption Looks Like
The UAE provides a useful contrast to Turkey.
BPI estimates the country processed approximately $150 billion in cryptocurrency transactions in 2025, making it one of the region’s largest digital-asset markets. Its transaction mix also points toward more diversified demand.
Bitcoin represented around 38% of trading activity, Ethereum 22%, while U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins, primarily USDT and USDC, accounted for roughly 30%.
The country’s growth has been accompanied by a comparatively developed regulatory structure, including Dubai’s dedicated virtual-asset regulator and frameworks covering exchanges, custody, tokenization and other digital-asset activities.
Earlier Chainalysis data already showed the UAE standing apart from much of MENA. Between July 2023 and June 2024, the country received more than $30 billion in crypto, while value flowing into DeFi services grew 74%. DEX activity alone rose 87% during that period.
The newer BPI estimate suggests the market has expanded considerably since then, although the figures cover different measurement periods and should not be treated as directly comparable growth calculations.
Conflict Is Changing Bitcoin’s Role in the Region
BPI’s September analysis was published against the backdrop of recent conflict in the Middle East, adding another dimension to regional crypto adoption.
When the Israel-Iran conflict initially escalated in June 2025, Bitcoin did not immediately behave like a conventional safe haven. The broader digital-asset market fell roughly 3.7%, while $BTC dropped about 2.3% to $105,200 as investors reduced risk.
The behavior changed as the conflict continued.
Capital rotated away from higher-risk altcoins toward Bitcoin, pushing $BTC dominance to 64.8%, while Bitcoin stabilized around $104,000-$106,000 despite continued geopolitical tension.
BPI argues that crypto’s 24/7 market structure also mattered. Investors could reposition while traditional financial markets were closed, giving digital assets a role that extends beyond price performance alone.
In economies already dealing with weaker currencies, that accessibility combines with another attraction: dollar-backed stablecoins provide exposure to the U.S. dollar without requiring users to hold physical dollars or rely exclusively on traditional banking channels.
Egypt offers one of the more extreme examples cited by BPI, with peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading volumes rising by more than 300% following successive devaluations of the Egyptian pound.
Regulation Is Becoming the Gulf’s Competitive Advantage
The next phase of MENA’s crypto growth may depend less on retail adoption and more on which jurisdictions can turn trading activity into durable financial infrastructure.
The UAE and Bahrain have pushed ahead with dedicated digital-asset frameworks, while Qatar has been developing its own regulatory foundation for digital assets and tokenization. Chainalysis previously linked Qatar’s improving regulatory environment with its rapid expansion and identified Saudi Arabia and Qatar as MENA’s two fastest-growing crypto economies.
Institutional participation is also unusually important. Chainalysis found that 93% of MENA crypto value transferred in its 2024 study involved transactions worth at least $10,000, indicating that professional and institutional activity already accounted for the overwhelming majority of value moving through the region.
The $350 billion regional figure therefore reflects more than a surge in speculative retail trading.
MENA is increasingly developing two distinct crypto use cases at the same time: Bitcoin and stablecoins as financial alternatives in economies facing monetary or geopolitical pressure, and regulated digital assets as part of a broader institutional-finance strategy in the Gulf.
Saudi Arabia’s 154% growth rate suggests that the second model is gaining ground quickly. The next test is whether that transaction growth converts into lasting market infrastructure, particularly institutional custody, tokenization, stablecoin settlement and regulated trading venues capable of keeping capital inside the region rather than simply routing it through global exchanges.
Source: cryptonews.net