Hedera Signs $250 Million Deal with Saudi Arabia

A 5-year partnership agreement aims to develop diverse technology solutions like AI, Blockchain... for companies based in Saudi Arabia.

Hedera signs $250 million deal with Saudi Arabia

On the evening of 06/02/2024, Hashgraph Association - an independent nonprofit organization focused on advancing the adoption and utilization of the Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) blockchain - has signed a 5-year cooperation agreement worth $250 million with the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia (MISA).

Through this agreement, Hashgraph Association will establish and launch the DeepTech Venture Studio to develop a variety of technology solutions such as AI, Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), Virtual Reality (VR),... for companies based in Saudi Arabia in the near future.

With the new contract, this alliance is confident it will achieve innovative strategies, opening up diverse development avenues to transform Saudi Arabia into a leading fintech hub, attracting interest from international companies.

Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Western Asia region, accounting for 45% of the $1.8 billion gaming market in the Middle East - North Africa region. The population of this country is also highly interested in technology, providing all the elements for Web3 to flourish.

Prior to Hedera, the top investment fund on Cardano, Adaverse, also decided to choose Saudi Arabia as the location to expand its Web3 investment portfolio. The Saudi Arabian government has also established the NEOM Investment Fund to focus on funding Web3 startup projects aimed at development in NEOM - a futuristic smart city worth $500 billion under the "Saudi Vision 2030" plan.

The Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) project is a public distributed ledger for building and deploying decentralized applications and microservices. Additionally, it operates on a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain similar to Algorand, Cardano, and Polkadot.

Since Dropp - a micro-payment platform operating on Hedera - was chosen as the instant payment solution by the Fed's FedNow instant payment system, and tech giant Dell confirmed to run nodes on the network, the Hedera ecosystem has shown "modest growth" over the past year, almost losing investor attention.

The latest news is expected to help Hedera regain community interest. The HBAR token also surged over 10% in the latest 24 hours, however, the cryptocurrency representing the network has seen a decline of over 80% in value over the past year.

4-hour chart of HBAR/USDT trading pair on Binance. Image captured at 09:30 PM on 06/02/2024.