The Institutional Bridge Builder: Saeed Al Fahim and the UAE’s Digital Asset Embrace

The United Arab Emirates is synonymous with wealth, but it’s traditionally been of the liquid gold rather than digital gold variety. The oil-rich region has taken full advantage of its natural resources, and its adroit extraction and exportation of them has greased the wheels of industry, making the country of just 10 million citizens a major player in global commerce.

Now it’s attempting to strike paydirt again, only this time instead of drilling deep it’s plumbing the digital heartlands that have become a new frontier for global enterprise. We’re talking blockchain, only in the UAE they’re not just talking about blockchain – they’re building with it.

The regulations permitting the flurry of innovation occurring across the federation of seven emirates have already been finalized. Now its architects are getting to work as the UAE’s blockchain strategy shifts from policy to production. In other parts of the world, officials are still grappling with the minutiae of stablecoin legislation and compliance. In the UAE, the assembly lines are running at full tilt, producing the rails on which the next decade of institutional blockchain products will run.

One figure who’s playing a pivotal role in this transformation, which is placing the UAE at the center of the global map for the second time in its history, is Saeed Al Fahim, the founder of stablecoin protocol Tharwa. He’s not the only founder spearheading the UAE’s blockchain embrace, but he embodies the path it’s taking that is rapidly connecting the Gulf capital to the efficiency of onchain finance.

The UAE’s Crypto Moment: From Sandbox to Standard

The UAE’s rise as a blockchain superpower has been a long time in the making but it’s only recently that the fruits of these endeavors have become manifest. Through the combined efforts of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and Dubai’s VARA, the region has created a regulatory gold standard for RWA tokenization.

This environment has attracted a new breed of founders that are not so much textbook crypto coders as institutionally-savvy strategists. And in the thick of it all is Saeed Al Fahim, who is intent on positioning Tharwa as a critical piece of financial infrastructure designed for sovereign-scale durability. In the process, he’s burnishing the country’s blockchain credentials.

Legacy Capital Meets Blockchain

Saeed’s background is rooted in the traditional economy. As a member of one of the UAE’s most prominent business families – a cornerstone of the national economy for decades – he earned his stripes in automotive, real estate, and industrial procurement.

Before founding Tharwa, Saeed oversaw industrial portfolios exceeding $500 million annually, optimizing global supply chains and leading large-scale digital transformations. He’s now bringing this corporate governance mindset to the Web3 space.

“In procurement, value is created by eliminating friction, automating decisions, and making capital work harder through better data and controls,” Saeed explains. With Tharwa, he’s applying that same disciplined approach to onchain markets, using AI to reduce inefficiency and turning passive liquidity into productive capital. He concludes: “It is operational excellence, rebuilt for Web3.”

This grounding informs his view that the future of digital money will not be built purely within crypto-native ecosystems, but through the integration of blockchain rails with established asset classes and institutional processes. In this sense, his trajectory reflects a broader generational shift within Gulf capital, where familiarity with traditional markets is increasingly paired with a willingness to adopt new financial technologies.

Moving Beyond the Static Stablecoin

At a time when stablecoins are evolving from trading instruments into foundational financial infrastructure, Saeed’s approach reflects a broader regional shift toward integrating blockchain with traditional capital markets. His work with Tharwa sits at the intersection of sovereign wealth and programmable finance, with the platform reflecting the UAE’s wider ambition to become a global hub for tokenized assets.

Under Saeed’s leadership, Tharwa has introduced thUSD, a next-generation stablecoin that challenges the “idle cash” model of traditional fiat-backed tokens. The Tharwa thesis is built on three institutional pillars:

• Structured Like a Fund: Unlike first-generation stablecoins that function as simple digital money market funds, thUSD is backed 1:1 by a diversified portfolio of high-quality RWAs, including Sukuk (Sharia-compliant bonds), UAE real estate, gold, and short-term sovereign debt.
• AI-Driven Optimization: The protocol utilizes the Confluence Engine, an AI-driven treasury layer that monitors macroeconomic data and risk in real-time. It manages exposure and rebalances the portfolio to optimize for sustainable productivity rather than speculative upside.
• Sharia-Aligned Framework: In ensuring yield is generated from asset productivity (rental income, commodity-linked returns) rather than interest-based lending (Riba), Saeed has unlocked massive pools of faith-aligned capital that were previously sidelined from the DeFi ecosystem.

The Structural Edge

What sets Saeed apart in the global RWA race the UAE is currently leading is his ability to operate at the intersection of private sector power and regulatory clarity. Based in Abu Dhabi, Tharwa benefits from direct proximity to asset originators and institutional partners who think in decades as opposed to cycles.

This structural advantage allows Tharwa to design products that anticipate institutional requirements such as transparent audits and hard risk limits before they become a regulatory mandate. For Saeed, being anchored in the UAE means building with a “license premium” that global capital can trust.

When it comes to RWA development, consensus holds that credibility and asset quality are likely to determine long-term winners, which is why the ability to operate within established institutional networks provides a meaningful advantage. It allows platforms like Tharwa to focus on building sustainable financial products rather than relying solely on crypto-native liquidity dynamics.

Saeed’s role, therefore, can be understood less as that of a typical crypto founder and more as a financial infrastructure architect working across two systems. His focus is on translating the scale and discipline of traditional capital markets into programmable formats that can operate on global digital rails.

Building Infrastructure, Not Hype

Rather than obsessing over bull runs and shifting market sentiment, Saeed Al Fahim is building for the next decade of global finance. As the UAE becomes the laboratory and the launchpad for asset-backed digital money, he’s ensuring that the transition to onchain capital is enshrined in real utility rather than hype. This is blockchain for business’ sake, pure and simple.

Saeed is not “in it for the tech,” yet recognizes that if serious institutional adoption is to manifest, the tech needs to be perfect. Modular. Interoperable. And fully compliant, both in terms of the regulatory standards and the cultural preferences of Tharwa’s target market. If he achieves this objective, Saeed’s legacy will be as the “institutional bridge builder” – the architect who ensured that when legacy capital finally arrived onchain, it found a home every bit as productive as the economy it left behind.