Isle of Man-based crypto exchange CoinCorner is looking to expand across the Middle East through a partnership with the private office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, CEO of the Emirates airline and member of the ruling family of Dubai.

Through the partnership with Seed Group, CoinCorner will establish a platform for the buying, selling, sending, receiving and storing of bitcoin (BTC) and offer local businesses services to transact in crypto.

“Apart from individuals, a large number of companies are ready to embrace bitcoin and other digital currencies as legal tender for future transactions," Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of Seed Group, said.

At the start of 2021, CoinCorner added support for the Lightning Network, a second layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain which enables transactions to be conducted more quickly through processing them on side chains. The hope is that this will address Bitcoin's scalability issues which hamper mainstream adoption.

The UAE has become an attractive gateway for expansion for crypto firms in recent months, particularly in Dubai thanks to its helpful regulatory regime. This year has seen crypto exchanges FTX, Kraken and OKX secures licenses from the city's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) allowing them to provide trading services to investors there.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by volume, also recently announced it had been granted a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) license in Dubai enabling it to hold clients' funds locally, operate a crypto exchange and offer payments and custody services.

Read more: Blockchain.com to Open Dubai Office After Securing Preliminary Regulatory Approval