CORRECTION: Story of UAE Blockchain Fund Was Based on Fraudulent Press Release, Agency Says
An individual claiming to be associated with UAE royalty also utilized a fake website.

A CoinDesk story regarding the establishment of a $100 million investment fund focused on supporting blockchain-based projects and development of related technology in the United Arab Emirates was based on a fake press release given to CoinDesk by a legitimate and long-standing crypto public relations agency, a representative of that agency now says.
The agency was contacted by an individual impersonating an official associated with the Private Office of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, according to Michael Terpin of Transform Group.
The individual also utilized a fake website that has now been taken down, Terpin said.
CoinDesk regrets the error.
UPDATE (Oct. 12, 1:38 UTC): Retracts and replaces previous information.
More For You
Specialized AI detects 92% of real-world DeFi exploits

New research claims specialized AI dramatically outperforms general-purpose models at detecting exploited DeFi vulnerabilities.
What to know:
- A purpose-built AI security agent detected vulnerabilities in 92% of 90 exploited DeFi contracts ($96.8 million in exploit value), compared with 34% and $7.5 million for a baseline GPT-5.1-based coding agent running on the same underlying model.
- The gap came from domain-specific security methodology layered on top of the model, not differences in core AI capability, according to the report.
- The findings come as prior research from Anthropic and OpenAI shows AI agents can execute end-to-end smart contract exploits at low cost, accelerating concerns that offensive AI capabilities are scaling faster than defensive adoption.











