The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is not interested in crypto investments, but its executives believe the underlying blockchain technology is promising for the country’s development.
The QIA CEO Mansoor Bin Ebrahim Al-Mahmoud said at the Qatar Economic Forum organized by Bloomberg that the fund is carefully studying the potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT), specifically blockchain.
According to Al-Mahmoud, the QIA is not interested in investing in cryptocurrencies, but exploring investment opportunities in the blockchain space could help the country make a digital transformation. He stressed that they are not interested in cryptocurrency, but in blockchain technology.
Qatar is one of 9 countries where cryptocurrencies are completely banned.
The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is a public investment fund with financial assets of about $300 billion, which is the fifteenth largest sovereign fund in the world. In the near future, the QIA intends to invest in African infrastructure and plans to put money into European projects in the long-term perspective. Al-Mahmoud stated that the QIA will no longer invest in Russia.
The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) has recently started studying the CBDC and in the next few months, is going to decide on the priorities of developing the CBDC.
