UAE’s ADAB Solutions eyes $18.7 mln from ‘halal coin’ ICO

UAE-registered ADAB Solutions plans to issue its own Shariah-compliant cryptocurrency and is targeting to raise a maximum of $18.7 million by the end of its initial coin offering (ICO) period on Dec 28, the company's deputy CEO of Islamic finance Maxat Salpyn told Salaam Gateway.

ADAB Solutions will kick off the ICO with a public pre-sale on Oct 18 with ADAB tokens priced at $0.10 each. The pre-sale will run until Nov 8, following which the offering will then be open to crowdsale until Dec 28.

The ICO public pre-sale was initially planned for Sep 6 but Salpyn told Salaam Gateway that only 10 percent of the more than 700 registered participants for the private pre-sale placement had made payments.

“This means that the remaining 90 percent did not have time to buy the company tokens. Therefore, we decided to postpone the date of our ICO and set up a new pre-ICO period,” Salpyn told Salaam Gateway in an email.

He added that the postponement of the public ICO will allow the company to better prepare for the ICO.

Most ADAB token buyers during the private pre-sale period from Aug 15 to Sep 5 came from Germany, Italy and Russia, according to Salpyn.

“Most surprising is that most investors for this Islamic project come from non-Muslim countries,” said Salpyn.

He added that the company hopes to reach its goal of involving the Muslim population in the crypto economy.

ISLAMIC CRYPTO EXCHANGE

Funds raised from the sale of ADAB tokens will be used to finance and build ADAB Solutions’ own blockchain-powered First Islamic Cryptocurrency Exchange (FICE), which is scheduled for an official launch in mid-2019.

The company is forecasting a daily trading volume of about $146 million on FICE and a monthly turnover of $4.4 billion during the first year and a half of operations of the exchange, it said in its whitepaper.

“To avoid riba and gharar on our Exchange we will use different types of quantitative ICO screens, like limits on debt-to-asset ratios, interest-related income, and monetary assets,” said Salpyn.

The company is still working out the Exchange’s rules of engagement.

Salpyn said futures trading will be prohibited but other trades are still being considered.

“We will probably also prohibit margin trading on the Exchange, as this is a very risky (and complicated) practice, as one can lose more than what he has borrowed,” said Salpyn.

“Short-selling can be prohibited, as this transaction involves huge risk that almost has no upper limits and from Shariah point of view you cannot sell what you do not possess,” he added.

These restrictions arising from the need to comply with Shariah will also exclude low-quality assets on the exchange.

Payment of commissions within FICE will be accepted only in ADAB tokens, which are key to accessing the services of the platform.

The final decisions on all trading matters will rest with the FICE Shariah Advisory Board, which is yet to be formed. 

ISLAMIC ICOs

Following the mid-2019 launch of FICE, Salpyn said the company hopes to become a global platform for launching prospective projects based on the principles of Islamic finance.

“We also plan to list the ADAB token on other exchanges in order to ensure stable demand for the token and support its liquidity,” Salpyn said, adding that the company will be running its own charitable foundation ADAB Charity at the same time.

ADAB Solutions is the latest cryptocurrency provider touting its ‘coins’ as Shariah-compliant.

These include HelloGold in Malaysia that launched an initial offer of its gold-backed cryptocurrency in October last year and Dubai-based OneGram, which issued a gold-backed cryptocurrency in May 2017.

(Reporting by Stephanie Augustin; Editing by Emmy Abdul Alim emmy.alim@thomsonreuters.com)

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