Saqr M. Ereiqat

Government Efficiency, Industry Creation&International Leadership - Dubai's BlockChain Strategy #blockchain @IBMBlockchain @JohnP261

🇩🇪🇵🇾 A German commentator called Paraguay a "third-class team" before kickoff, saying Germany were on "a different level" and the match would feel like a domestic cup game. Germany then failed to score, missed 3 penalties, and went home. Schadenfreude is a German word. Ironically, it's how much of the world feels about Germany today. Writer: Julie

اعتمدنا مجموعة من المشاريع والمبادرات التطويرية الجديدة التابعة لبلدية دبي، وذلك في إطار جهودنا لتطوير منظومة المرافق والخدمات الحضرية، وتعزيز جودة الحياة في الإمارة. وتشمل المشاريع "سوق دبي للصقور"، كأول مشروع من نوعه في المنطقة يحتفي بتراثنا الأصيل بروحٍ مستقبلية، ومشروع "إضاءات خور دبي" بطول إجمالي يبلغ 8 كيلومترات، ليقدّم تجربة بصرية ليلية جديدة تعيد إحياء قلب دبي التاريخي بتقنيات متطورة. كما اعتمدنا أول تجربة عالمية لتصميم حديقة بالذكاء الاصطناعي بالشراكة مع المجتمع، إلى جانب توظيف الذكاء الاصطناعي وتحليل البيانات لإشراك أفراد المجتمع في تصميم مساحات دبي المستقبلية … تواصل دبي الاستثمار في الأفكار النوعية التي ترتقي بجودة الحياة وتدمج التراث بالابتكار والتاريخ بالمستقبل وتوظف الذكاء الاصطناعي لخدمة أهل دبي وزوارها.

Most people do not realize how many tech giants are already deep bear market territory. Tech Stocks From Record Highs: 1. Coinbase, $COIN: -69% 2. Oracle, $ORCL: -57% 3. Salesforce, $CRM: -57% 4. ServiceNow, $NOW: -56% 5. Netflix, $NFLX: -48% 6. Palantir, $PLTR: -48% 7. Microsoft, $MSFT: -37% 8. Meta, $META: -32% 9. Arm Holdings, $ARM: -27% 10. Broadcom, $AVGO: -26% 11. Marvell Technology, $MRVL: -20% 12. Nvidia, $NVDA: -19% 13. Amazon, $AMZN: -19% 14. Alphabet, $GOOGL: -17% 15. CrowdStrike, $CRWD: -15% 16. Apple, $AAPL: -14% 17. Taiwan Semiconductor, $TSM: -12% The S&P 500 won't tell you this.

BREAKING: The S&P 500 erases losses and turns green.

What just happened? In just 27 minutes, the Nasdaq 100 just fell -1,000 points and the S&P 500 erased -$1 TRILLION without any major headlines. The Nasdaq opened +1% higher then fell -3% between 9:30 AM and 9:57 AM ET. What does it all mean? Let us explain. (a thread)

Hamdan bin Mohammed: As part of our efforts to enhance quality of life and urban services across the emirate, I have approved a new package of Dubai Municipality projects. These projects include the 'Dubai Falcon Market', the first of its kind in the region, celebrating our heritage with a future-forward vision; 'Dubai Creek Lighting', an 8 kilometre project that will transform the historic heart of Dubai, offering a unique nighttime experience; and the world’s first AI designed park, developed with community participation, and leveraging AI and data to shape the future of Dubai’s public spaces. Dubai continues to invest in innovative ideas that bring together heritage, technology, and quality of life for residents and visitors alike.

Dubai-it. It means delivering something exceptional with excellence, speed and impact, transforming bold ideas into reality, ambition into achievement, and vision into results the world can see. Inspired by the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Dubai’s remarkable development journey, Dubai-it has become a philosophy of action that drives innovation and progress. Today, we launch the Dubai-it Award, an annual recognition of individuals, projects, companies and institutions that embody this approach. The award celebrates achievement while inspiring the next generation of transformative success.

The Netherlands hides huge trash containers underground to keep streets spotless.

On April 1, 1999, Mark Cuban sold a streaming company called Broadcast .com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion. He became a paper billionaire overnight. Yahoo had paid him in stock, not cash. He spent the next 6 months trying to figure out how to keep it. Cuban owned about a third of Broadcast .com going in, which left him holding 14.6 million Yahoo shares worth roughly $1.4 billion at the time. By law, he couldn't touch any of it. The deal came with a standard 6-month lockup that prohibited him from selling or hedging a single share. He had to sit and watch. What he watched was a tech market getting more disconnected from reality by the week. Companies like Pets .com and Webvan were burning through investor money with no path to profit and trading at valuations that didn't make sense to anyone who looked twice. Cuban looked twice. He decided the crash, when it came, was going to take everything down with it. Including Yahoo. Including him. So he started planning. The moment his 6-month lockup ended, Cuban put on a financial structure that's now famous in trading circles. A zero-cost collar. A collar works like this. You sell call options on your stock, which gives someone else the right to buy your shares from you at a fixed higher price. That caps your upside. You use the cash from selling those calls to buy put options, which give you the right to sell your shares at a fixed lower price. That gives you a hard floor under the downside. The two trades balance each other out so the whole package costs almost nothing to put on, hence the name. Effectively, Cuban locked in something close to his $1.4 billion. If Yahoo's stock went down, his puts paid out. If it went up, he'd hit the cap and be cashed out at the higher price. Yahoo's stock kept rising at first. It hit his cap. He got cashed out, in cash, at the high level he'd set. Real dollars, not paper. A few months later, in March 2000, the dot-com bubble burst. Yahoo's stock fell from a peak of roughly $237 a share to about $13 over the next 2 years. Almost every other dot-com paper billionaire watched their fortune disintegrate. Many of them had not hedged because they didn't think the prices would fall, or because they thought hedging was a sign of weakness, or because they were emotionally attached to the company they'd just sold. Cuban kept his $1.4 billion. He once called the trade "one of the top 10 trades of all time on Wall Street." People remember the sale. They don't remember the collar. The headline was the $5.7 billion sale to Yahoo. The thing that actually mattered, the move that decided whether Cuban kept his fortune or watched it disintegrate like everyone else's, was a piece of derivative paperwork most people couldn't even read. Plenty of founders sell at the top. What separated Cuban is that he understood selling was only half the trade. What you do with the money in the moments right after the windfall matters more than the windfall itself. Cuban put it more simply. "The whole market cratered and I was protected."

Over 47 years, the Dubai World Trade Centre has helped position Dubai as a global hub for business and leading industry events. In 2025, it achieved a record AED 25.03 billion in economic output, up 12 percent year on year, by hosting more than 108 major events that attracted 2.18 million participants, including 947,000 international visitors. These results highlight Dubai’s role as a global meeting point that connects economies and drives sustainable growth.

We rebranded Onchain City to @NaytiveHQ and made a very serious, definitely-not-cheesy video to celebrate. We started by building for the onchain world. What we learned is that the future is global.

The airline lost my bag for 72 hours. They handed me a $50 “courtesy” voucher at the baggage desk and smiled like they’d done me a favor. I kept the voucher. Then I opened my laptop and used a 1999 international treaty they never mention at check-in. Total recovered: $1,650. Here are the three legal weapons most passengers never know they have.

The longest road in the world that a person can walk... The longest theoretically walkable road on Earth stretches from Cape Town to Magadan, spanning roughly 22,387 km (13,910 miles) without the need for any boat or air travel. The route passes through about 17 countries, crossing Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and into Siberia via connected roads and bridges. Even at an ambitious pace of 12 hours of walking per day, the journey would take around a year to complete. At a more moderate schedule of 8 hours per day, it would extend to roughly a year and a half of continuous travel.

Dubai hosts the MENA Blockchain Week (MENABCW), running from May 18 to May 24, 2026. The initiative brings together 40+ simultaneous events, 5,000+ attendees, and 100+ speakers.

Press release just dropped. 3 DAYS TO GO! 🔥 🇦🇪 Dubai didn't wait. It built. 🇦🇪 MENA Blockchain Week 2026 (MENABCW) is the region's first decentralized, city-wide Blockchain initiative, a coordination layer uniting founders, investors, institutions, and policymakers across Dubai under one unified ecosystem. This is not a conference. Not a summit. This is an ecosystem infrastructure. Built for everyone! MENA Blockchain Week (MENABCW) aligns with the UAE’s Proud of UAE initiative and the D33 Agenda, reinforcing the nation’s resilience and its leadership across the region. 🎪 40+ events across the city. 👥 5,000+ attendees. 🎤 100+ speakers. 🔥Dubai is the anchor. 🔥The movement starts now. 📍 Dubai | May 18 – May 24, 2026 Learn more: menablockchainweek.ae/post/mena-bloc… 🔗 Register NOW for free with a full agenda here: menablockchainweek.ae THE WEEK AT A GLANCE ​📅 May 14 — Launch Event: Community Resilience Summit ​📅 May 18 — Day 1: Builders & Community Day ​📅 May 19 — Day 2: AI & Blockchain Innovation ​📅 May 20 — Day 3: Payments & Digital Banking ​📅 May 21 — Day 4: Regulation, Security & Compliance ​📅 May 22 — Day 5: RWA & Tokenization ​📅 May 23 — Day 6: Creators Day & Workshops ​📅 May 24 — Day 7: Trading & Exchanges Day The Forces Behind the Movement Organizer: SkyNet X Solutions @SNXS_ae Destination Partner: Dubai Business Events @DubaiDET Founding Partner: Hadron Founders Club @Hadronfc Strategic Partners: Binance @binance, Polygon @0xPolygon, DBCC, Association for Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (ABAI), The Dubai Digital Asset Association (D2A2), MENA Fintech Association @TheMENAFintech, Ghaf Labs @GhafLabs Community Partners: Dubai Ethereum Community Hub @EFetheverywhere, Unbox Community, Tech Valley @TechValleyUAE, Bitcoineen @bitcoineen, Philipine Blockchain Week @philippinebc_wk Media Partners: Cointelegraph @Cointelegraph, Luna PR @LunaPRofficial, DXtalks @dxtalks, Unlock Blockchain @unlockbc, Fifreedomtoday @fifreedomtoday, BEST IN MEDIA @bestinmediaclub #MENABCW #UAE #Dubai

@MENABCW @D2A2_official Thank you @MENABCW ! I'm excited to be part of this event

🎤 Speaker Announcement We’re proud to welcome Saqr Ereiqat, Managing Partner, 030. Group & Secretary General, Dubai Digital Asset Association (@D2A2_official ), as a featured speaker at MENA Blockchain Week 2026. Saqr is one of the most authoritative voices on blockchain policy and digital asset ecosystems in the region. As Secretary General of D2A2, the industry body formed under the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, he bridges regulators, policymakers, and industry leaders to shape the UAE's digital asset framework. A 13-year IBM veteran and former Head of Public Sector Consultancy in Dubai, Saqr co-authored IBM's first blockchain-for-government methodology and helped define Dubai's official blockchain strategy. He has led projects across 23 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, with former clients including Dubai's RTA, Smart Dubai, Shell, and the Saudi Government's National Health Lab. He is also the co-founder of Crypto Oasis Ventures and has been instrumental in changing the laws across three countries. Get ready for powerful insights, real-world strategies, and forward-thinking perspectives shaping the future of Blockchain. 40+ events. 5,000+ attendees. 100+ speakers. One City. One week. One nation. 🇦🇪 Join the movement: luma.com/MENABCW 📍 Dubai | May 18 - May 24, 2026 🔗 menablockchainweek.ae #MENABlockchainWeek #Dubai #MENABCW

This is absolutely insane: President Trump's purchase of 10% of Intel, $INTC, was worth $8.9 billion in August 2025. Today, Apple announced a deal with Intel and this position is worth $56.5 billion. That's a gain of +$47.6 BILLION in less than 8 months. Truly unprecedented.

Warren Buffett just warned that the US dollar could collapse and admitted he doesn't understand most of the stock market anymore. 95 years old, sitting on $380 billion in cash, and the first time watching from the sidelines instead of actively investing. And what he revealed at this weekend's Berkshire shareholder meeting is genuinely concerning: On the market, Buffett didn't hold back. He compared it to "a church with a casino attached" and said the casino has never been more packed. On one-day options: "That is not investing. It's not speculating. It's gambling. Totally." He pointed to the Avis short squeeze THIS WEEK. A rental car company that's been around for 50 years getting meme-squeezed in 2026. The same behavior that blew up retail traders with GameStop is back, except now it's hitting boring legacy companies with zero business being volatile. "We have lots more regulation now, but people spend their time figuring out how to get around the rules rather than follow the rules." That one sentence explains more about the current market than every CNBC segment combined. When asked why he's hoarding $380 billion instead of investing it, Buffett said something no one expected: "I understand fewer of the businesses as a percentage of the whole than I did 10 years ago. I have not learned new industries for some years. I'm not going to have an edge on a whole bunch of younger people that have actually grown up with it." Think about what he's actually saying... This is a man who made $140 billion by understanding businesses better than anyone alive. And he's telling you the current market is so detached from reality that even HE can't make sense of what's being valued and why. He quoted IBM's Tom Watson Sr.: "I'm smart in spots and I stay around those spots." In 60 years of managing money, he said MAYBE five were "really juicy." Five out of sixty. That means 92% of his career was spent WAITING while everyone else gambled. And he still ended up richer than all of them. Then the conversation turned to inflation and that's where it gets really interesting: Buffett said America is "not immune" from runaway inflation. He brought up countries that went bankrupt "six or seven times" in his lifetime. Compared today to right before Volcker had to rescue the dollar, when Americans were borrowing at 12% to buy farmland earning 6% because they believed the dollar would disappear. "Cash is trash" was the mentality. Nebraska farmers collapsed because of it. Entire communities wiped out not by a recession but by a BELIEF that the currency was dying. And Buffett sees that same energy building again. Then someone asked the question everyone wanted answered: Do you see a crash coming? "If you saw it coming, it wouldn't happen. The things people are talking about and thinking about? It's not going to happen. But there are things that can come out of the blue." He compared it to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 that triggered World War I. Nobody was discussing or anticipating it. But it changed the world overnight. "That's particularly true now because of the things that can come out of the sky." A 95yo man who has survived every crash, every war, every crisis of the last six decades just told you the market is a casino, the dollar isn't safe, and the real collapse will be something nobody sees coming. $380 billion in cash is his answer because he believes things are about to get much worse.