UAE-Based Airline ‘Emirates’ Says It Is Planning to Accept Bitcoin for Payments

Dubai-headquartered Emirates, which is one of the two flag carries of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is reportedly planning to embrace Bitcoin, NFTs, and the metaverse.

According to a report published by Arab News on Wednesday (May 11), Emirates COO Adel Ahmed Al-Redha said at this year’s Arabian Travel Market (ATM) event in Dubai that his company will “hire new staff for metaverse and non-fungible tokens, also known as NFTs, in an effort to develop applications to monitor customer needs.”

He then added:

“NFTs and metaverse are two different applications and approaches… With the metaverse, you will be able to transform your whole processes — whether it is in operation, training, sales on the website, or complete experience — into a metaverse type application, but more importantly making it interactive.“

He also revealed that Emirates “plans to employ Bitcoin as a payment service while adding NFT collectibles on the company’s websites for trading.”

In March, DAMAC Properties, a leading real estate developer in the UAE, reportedly launched a metaverse project.

According to a report by Unlock, the first hint that Ali Hussain Sajwani, who “oversees day-to-day operations” at DAMAC, was thinking about the world of blockchain technology, NFTs, and the metaverse came “when he published on twitter a survey where he noted that more than 30 percent of respondents believe NFTs… will be used in the real estate sector.”

Apparently, Sajwani “first revealed his intention to launch DAMAC Metaverse project during the second AMA session for NFTyRacer with CryptoBear Watch Club which was posted on twitter on February 15th 2022″ and during this AMA session he “spoke about his support of Crypto Bear Watch Club as well as the upcoming DAMAC Metaverse project.”

Sajwani stated:

“We are doing a lot at DAMAC, and when it comes to the metaverse, I think DAMAC will be entering the metaverse in the next month to 45 days. We are excited.“

Here is what Sajwani told UNLOCK:

“At DAMAC we are looking into different ways to include NFTs and the Metaverse. As you know DAMAC is not only a multi-billion dollar property developer but also holds brands such as Roberto Cavalli (purchased in 2019). So, while most use the term Metaverse loosely we think it is much more and we have come up with a solution where we bridge the physical and digital assets to allow for cross utilization. We have formulated a solution to integrate the different platforms under DAMAC, whether real estate, fashion, jewelry bringing all onto the metaverse.“

Also, at the AMA session, he said:

“I am a real estate developer running one the largest real estate property developers in the world yet when I saw Crypto Bear Watch Club art, I was intrigued so I started to work with them to add utility to the NFTs and help build the roadmap.“

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Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.

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