Abu Dhabi’s ADI Foundation to Bring One Billion People Into Digital Economy

The ADI Foundation states that it is actively developing digital infrastructure tailored for payments, settlements, and cross-border transactions, anchored by the upcoming stablecoin denominated in UAE dirhams and regulated by the UAE’s central bank. The stablecoin is slated to run on the ADI blockchain. The vision is to enable instant, low-cost, compliance-first payments and settlement across the UAE and beyond. In parallel, ADI is building out a testnet, preparing to launch a mainnet, and positioning itself as a hub for forging relationships with regulators, developers, institutions, and investors. At TOKEN2049, one of the world’s flagship Web3 events, the Foundation displayed its roadmap and network leverage to the global community.

Beyond purely technical infrastructure, the ADI Foundation is planning a platform to nurture a blockchain-capable workforce, centered around education in blockchain fundamentals and hands-on prototyping and sandbox environments for Web3 solutions. This dual track of technology and human capital is meant to seed sustainable digital ecosystems in emerging markets, particularly across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. This educational push aims to close the skills gap often cited in blockchain adoption, where many regions struggle to attract capable local developers, compliance officers, and institutional partners.

The ADI Foundation also plans to leverage prominent international platforms to amplify its message, including participation in the Singapore FinTech Festival, Abu Dhabi Finance Week, and the World Economic Forum in Davos. During the upcoming Abu Dhabi Finance Week in December 2025, ADI will host a high-level celebration event that will bring together regulators, investors, technologists, and global policy actors.

By anchoring its event to Abu Dhabi Finance Week, already one of the MENA region’s largest finance and investment summits, ADI intends to situate itself at the intersection of global capital flows, policy, and frontier technology innovation. The Finance Week typically draws hundreds of global speakers and institutions managing trillions in assets. The strategy signals an ambition not merely to build infrastructure, but to become a convening power in the global Web3 and emerging markets discourse.

If successful, ADI’s effort could meaningfully boost digital inclusion in regions that remain underbanked, under-digitized, or disconnected from global financial rails. A widely adopted stablecoin, paired with local development capacity, might lower remittance costs, speed cross-border trade, and foster financial innovation in markets currently underserved by legacy banking infrastructure.

However, the project also faces real challenges. Regulatory clarity remains uneven across jurisdictions, and many countries remain cautious about stablecoins and central bank digital currency frameworks. The credibility and stability of the dirham-backed token will hinge on transparency, reserve backing, and auditability. There is also the risk of fragmentation as individual countries may pursue competing systems or impose capital controls that limit cross-border utility.

Furthermore, on-the-ground adoption in emerging markets often depends not just on technology, but on trust, education, user-friendly on-ramping, and alignment with local regulatory and financial systems. The Foundation’s effort to train a workforce is relevant here, but execution will be central.

Unlike many crypto startups promising global adoption, ADI is approaching the challenge via a hybrid path, leveraging sovereign backing through a central bank-regulated stablecoin, embedding compliance considerations from the start, and coupling infrastructure development with capacity building. That model may prove more robust in markets where trust deficits or regulatory opacity slow adoption.

While other organizations promote financial inclusion through microfinance, mobile money, or CBDCs, ADI’s strategy is anchored in Web3 principles such as programmability, composability, and a blend of permissioned and permissionless systems. Its long-term viability will depend on bridging the gap between idealized decentralized architectures and real-world institutional constraints.

The announcement by the ADI Foundation marks a significant push in efforts to deepen digital economic access across emerging markets. With the stablecoin launch upcoming, global outreach efforts, and an educational component, the project has the ingredients to shape regional adoption dynamics. From here, the key developments to watch are the technical details, transparency, and audit framework of the UAE dirham-backed stablecoin; the architecture, security, and decentralization features of the ADI blockchain and mainnet; how national regulators in target jurisdictions respond; uptake rates in pilot markets; and the effectiveness of the workforce training platform in producing usable talent in developing economies.