Emaar Properties, the company that developed Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world), with an income of nearly $6 billion per year, has allegedly started accepting Bitcoin and Ethereum for payments by using the services of Bitcoin Suisse, a crypto broker which has similar functions to BitPay.
No official statements have been made by Emaar so far, but Invest Group, a brokerage firm based in Dubai, gave further clarifications regarding a recent tweet they made:
“Emaar is the one now accepting crypto currency,” Invest Group stated. “All registered agents (such as us) received an email from Emaar about the news.”
The email that was sent is claimed to look like an official email address of Emaar, as it ends with an emaar.ae. The email read the following:
“We are pleased to announce now that all customers will be able to buy Emaar Properties using digital currencies (Bitcoin & Ethereum). The transaction will happen through one of the biggest brokers of digital currencies in the world ‘Bitcoin Suisse’ who are regulated and based in Switzerland.”
The email also has attached a five-page document which described the payment process with BTC or ETH, which are then exchanged into dollars and sent to Emaar.
Emaar is the biggest company in all of UAE in property development, and it is currently the biggest real estate developer to accept cryptos. The adoption of the two biggest cryptos in the space means that many international and local property agents will accept as crypto as payment for Emaar properties.
The document also states that Bitcoin Suisse will be accepting BCH and BSV with conversions possible in a number of fiat currencies, including the Arab Emirates Dirham. But the email only mentions the support for bitcoin and ETH, so it is not clear if the other mentioned cryptos are accepted.
Blockchain and crypto adoption seems to have also hit the Middle East, with $5 billion worth of BTC being processed in the last 24 hours, counting over a trillion for the entire year of 2018, the coin being close to exceed MasterCard value transfers.