Share this article
UAE's First Bitcoin Startup Shuts Down
Bitcoin payments firm YellowPay has shut down according to members of its founding team.
By Pete Rizzo
Updated Sep 11, 2021, 12:17 p.m. Published May 24, 2016, 2:44 p.m.
Bitcoin payments firm YellowPay, by some accounts the first industry startup in the Middle East, has shut down for undisclosed reasons according to members of its founding team.
Forming in 2014, YellowPay had sought to promote bitcoin as an e-commerce solution in the Middle East, enlisting a former managing director for PayPal as a senior advisor.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Despite this traction, other sources suggested the startup faced issues with its business model, including a decision to continue to emphasize the benefits of digital currency for online payments, a business strategy that has fallen out of favor with the industry and investors.
Still, the revelation comes amid a positive news cycle for the technology in the region, with the Dubai government officially partnering to host Keynote 2016, a blockchain-focused conference to be held 30th May.
Further, the news comes as another Yellow founder and former advisor Ola Doudin raised an undisclosed seed round for a regional startup called BitOasis. Investors in the deal include MENA-focused VC firm Wamda Capital and regional payment processor PayFort.
Disclaimer: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in YellowPay.
Dirhams image via Shutterstock
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Zcash Floats Dynamic Fee Plan to Ensure Users Won’t Be Priced Out
ZEC zoomed 12% amid the fee discussion, beating gains across all major tokens.
What to know:
- A new proposal by Shielded Labs suggests a dynamic fee market for Zcash to address rising transaction costs and network congestion.
- The proposed system uses a median fee per action observed over the prior 50 blocks, with a priority lane for high-demand periods.
- The changes aim to maintain Zcash's privacy features while avoiding complex protocol redesigns.
Top Stories
