Solana has firmly established itself as a foundational layer for scalable, high-throughput blockchain applications —  and in the process, it’s attracted a rapidly growing global community of developers and users.

That momentum is now expanding into the Middle East. Earlier this year, the Solana Foundation signed an MoU with Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, signaling a commitment to deeper regulatory engagement, talent development, and the creation of a dedicated Solana Economic Zone in the region.

Building on this, Solana’s reach extended further east last month, as the Foundation — alongside Jupiter, AIX, and Interbix — signed an MoU in Kazakhstan to enable dual IPO and tokenized share listings. It’s a bold step that could serve as a model for similar frameworks in emerging markets.

At the center of this regional push is Alex Scott, Solana’s Middle East Lead, based in Dubai — now one of the world’s most important crypto hubs. Alex has played a key role in shaping Solana’s ecosystem strategy in the region, connecting founders and sparking market-shaping initiatives

Today, we’re speaking with Alex to unpack these developments and hear his insights on Solana’s vision for Saudi Arabia’s fast-moving digital asset landscape.

Adaverse: You’ve often shared how your introduction to Solana came through meeting the Superteam India folks in Dubai, and how the mission of unlocking global economic opportunity really resonated with you. Looking back, what was the turning point that made you realize the scale of impact you could have by building in the Middle East?

Alex: I understood the scale of the opportunity by watching our Dubai experiments compound. We began with a small delegation tour in November 2023 that brought 20 founders to meet regulators, investors, and builders in one week. In April 2024, we ran the first Founders’ Villa and hosted 50 founders for ten days of workshops, daily shipping, and investor dinners. Six months later, we doubled the capacity for Founders’ Villa 2. 

The real inflection came in April 2025 with the Solana Economic Zone, a two-week unconference that blended coworking policy roundtables and demo days for 400 participants. It proved we had a repeatable model built on quick visas, low bureaucracy, and a curated program that lets builders raise capital and launch products in the same trip. We are now targeting more than 800 unique attendees at the next SEZ Dubai. That growth in less than two years convinced me the Middle East can be the fastest place to turn an idea into a global company.

Adaverse: You’ve spoken often about Dubai’s unique, diverse environment, the supportive regulatory landscape, and the influx of talent and capital that’s making the UAE a global blockchain hub. In your opinion, what’s the “next Dubai”? Is there another city or region you think is about to break out as a global Web3 hub?

Alex: Dubai will continue to lead, but if I had to bet on the “next Dubai,” it’s Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is investing in tech infrastructure, education, and entrepreneurship. But beyond capital, it has a young, ambitious population that wants to build. I also think Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka are incredibly underrated. Both have economically progressive governments that have big plans to attract global talent. If given the right tooling and community, they’ll produce the next generation of global Web3 startups.

Adaverse: What are your plans in Saudi Arabia? How do you view its ecosystem as different from Dubai’s? Given Saudi Arabia’s larger population and predominantly Saudi demographic, what solutions do you think are most suitable for this market compared to Dubai?

Alex: Our immediate goal is to launch Founders’ Villa: Riyadh, a two-week, invite-only residency where top Saudi builders co-create with global Solana teams. We are actively looking for government partners who can convene the right stakeholders from across the Kingdom’s tech ecosystem: regulators, sovereign funds, corporate innovators, and university labs, so the program reflects local priorities from day one. Riyadh’s strengths differ from Dubai’s: the market is overwhelmingly domestic, consumer purchasing power is high, and public sector initiatives can move a project from pilot to nationwide deployment faster than almost anywhere else. Solutions that respect cultural norms while tackling high-frequency pain points such as halal-compliant DeFi savings tools, tokenised SME financing, and distributed energy trading will resonate far more than the cross-border remittance products that thrive in Dubai’s expat scene.

Adaverse: With Superteam UAE, you’ve helped a lot of early-stage founders – sometimes people who don’t even see themselves as founders yet  – get started and go global. What qualities stand out in the builders who really succeed, and how do you help them make that leap from hackathon participant to startup founder?

Alex: The founders who leap from weekend hacker to funded startup share three habits—relentless shipping, tight feedback loops, and compelling storytelling. SEZ Dubai is engineered to turn those traits into results: theme-based days put regulators, investors and domain experts on the same timetable so founders can learn and pitch in one afternoon; a coworking hub open late eliminates downtime; daily demos and pitch reviews demand a working prototype every 24 hours; on-chain insta-grants of up to $10 000 deliver capital within hours; and curated meals, wellness breaks and excursions spark serendipitous co-founder or customer connections, so after two weeks participants leave with a live product, warm intros to decision-makers and a clear regulatory path to launch in the GCC.

Adaverse: As Solana gears up for big events like Breakpoint in Abu Dhabi and keeps growing so fast in the region, what’s been the toughest part about scaling the community and making sure founders still get the support they need?

Alex: The hardest challenge is maintaining depth of mentorship as headcount explodes. Swapping quality for reach would kill the culture, so we decentralise: train alumni as chapter leads, launch an open-source playbook for meetups, and automate grants with on-chain milestone tracking. That frees core team bandwidth to focus on high-touch support for the outlier projects that can move the ecosystem forward.

Adaverse: Where do you see the most exciting opportunities at that intersection, and what would you say to founders who want to build in that space?

Alex: Right now, the sharpest opportunities sit in DePIN, stablecoins, and on-chain stocks and equities. DePIN projects that crowd-sourced hardware, telecoms, and energy infrastructure map perfectly to the Gulf’s appetite for hard assets and government support for smart-city build-outs. Stablecoins solve a real pain in a region defined by cross-border trade, remittances, and dollar-pegged currencies, while giving merchants instant settlement and regulators full audit trails. Tokenised stocks and equities open 24-7 global markets to local investors and let startups raise capital from their own users without listing abroad. My advice: pick a narrow wedge, such as payroll stablecoin rails or fractional shares in a profitable business, ship a compliant MVP in weeks, not months, partner early with regulators and use Solana’s speed and low fees to keep the user experience as smooth as any Web2 app. Speed of execution and relentless user feedback will separate the winners from the whitepapers.