Roland Berger recommended numerous clients on lighthouse projects to construct a crypto economy involving major sovereign funds.
Roland Berger, the global strategic management consultancy firm is currently working on two of the biggest crypto-economy projects in the UAE. They have a powerful presence in MENA. The first crypto-economy project strategized by Roland Berger is building the biggest crypto mining facility in the UAE, and the second project is formulating a strategic crypto cluster in the UAE. Feroz Sanaulla and Pierre Samaties, the two Partners in charge of leading the global Crypto Economy team have recently answered some questions about these projects.
Crypto Economy at Roland Berger
Roland Berger is the first premium strategy consulting firm that has infiltrated the world of the crypto economy. As Feroz states, this evolving area is becoming widely approved day by day among international corporations, companies, as well as governments in the MENA region. Roland Berger has strong competencies in this area and they are using it to make sure entities move forwards in terms of their policies and futures. The company seems proud to seize a prominent and dignified role in the future of technology.
Roland Berger has newly printed an article on the “Rise of Crypto Economy” stating why governments, investment funds and corporates should start formulating their crypto strategy immediately. The seven key trends which shape the crypto economy has been summarized by Pierre.
He explained that those trends are how Roland Berger tends to look at the crypto economy from a holistic point of view. currency and digital assets are not their only focus. They also focus on the technology and utilize cases that will support the crypto economy to build modern disruptive business models, powered by DLT. The future of Finance, CeFi, and DeFi which disrupts financial and insurance business models will all be part of the first trend; The way we budget, manage and trade assets will be revolutionized by asset tokenization which is essentially part of the second trend. The third one is the rising of the metaverse which will unlock new business models in the combined digital space. The fourth trend, on the other hand, is associated with supply chain modifications facilitating M2M or Machine to Machine transactions in a more protected manner using nothing but blockchain. The fifth theme is Web3 and the Data Economy where Web3 applications alter the way infrastructure and data are stocked, shared and monetized. The fifth theme will be a stimulus for the sharing economy. Ocean Protocol and Helium are some of the extraordinary examples of pioneers in this space.
According to Pierre, Crypto Mining and Staking is the sixth element that is seen as a profitable venture as well as a strategic advantage because in many cases it allows miners’/stakers administrate influence and protects their decision-making rights over the future of the protocol.
Digital identities play a major role in the crypto economy by employing crucial tamper-proof identities for humans, machines and organizations. So, it’s understandable why the last element among the seven are digital identity and belief.
Crypto Economy Projects in the Middle East and UAE
While many traditional players like JP Morgan had initially been massive sceptics of crypto and the crypto economy, today crypto and the metaverse is being embraced by the very same traditional players. Feroz reckons that in this day and age buyers are the only driving force behind any business and product invention. The Institutions have no choice but to be client-focused. To be exposed to the crypto economy, They must cater to their consumer’s demands.
The UAE as a country has been known for its innovation and development towards becoming a crypto-based economy. Pierre suggests we might soon see banks offering digital assets to either institutions or the public. Wouldn’t consumers be naturally more prone to have a bank that they can rely on to be their digital asset custodian rather than putting faith in a purely crypto entity? The question is yet to be answered. However, we can’t deny that the purely crypto companies have become major brands themselves. We all have witnessed the change in the latest advertisement showcases in the US Super Bowl, which was naturally referred to as the Crypto Bowl.
In terms of the region, Roland Berger has been operating with various players internationally on developing strategies for the crypto economy as well as use case implementation. Pierre claimed that they can fill the gap between the Boardrooms and the engine rooms. It is their pivotal strength. They combine strategic insight with commercial and technical know-how, which is a must-have for anyone wanting to successfully dive into the complexity of the multidisciplinary and fast-paced crypto-economy.
RB is also advising various retail-focused clients to concentrate on formulating their metaverse strategies. Feroz adds, “There is no crystal ball and we all know that. Who would have ever imagined that we would be using mobile phones with the same internet that is connecting billions of people? Similarly, a graphically driven interface will soon be developed by the metaverse where we all reside and work. Currently, we are in the digital verse where identities are nothing but single manifestations on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. However, in the metaverse, there will be exclusively one identity in a single world.”
