Keep the jargon aside: How Liminal is making it easier for businesses to understand and adopt digital assets in MENA
Singapore headquartered, Liminal is looking at the growing market of digital assets in the Middle East and making it simple and secure for web3-based businesses.
If the last year was marked by one landmark event—it was the fall of , the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange. For sceptics of crypto, it reinstated some concerns about digital assets, and for others who were in the sector, it meant going back to the drawing board.
To Mahin Gupta, most risks associated with cryptocurrency came from complex terminology that most businesses and developers do not understand. In an attempt to simplify the process to get onto Web3, he founded in 2021.
Simply put—it helps any kind of firm from cryptocurrency exchanges to companies, manage and store digital assets in an easy and secure manner. “We wanted to make the transition of businesses and startups from Web2 to Web3 simplified, secure and compliant. This means we hid most of the complexities from the user interface,” Gupta explained.
Since kicking off operations in Singapore, the company has expanded to the Middle East starting with Dubai, as of the mid of 2022. This is at a time when the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is slowly clinching the spot as a hot digital assets hub globally.
Despite being one of the smaller cryptocurrency markets in the world, the region has made its presence known. It received $566 billion in cryptocurrency between June 2021 and July 2022, according to data by Chainlysis.
This is true for Liminal too. Till date, it has helped 35 businesses across nine countries including the UAE and India adopt the right crypto wallet infrastructure. It also raised $4.7 million in June 2022 from Elevation Capital with the participation from LD Capital, Woodstock, Nexus Ventures, and crypto ventures like CoinDCX, Hashed, Cadenza Ventures, Vauld, Better Capital, and Sparrow Capital.
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Crypto regulations and the Gulf
In many ways, the Gulf region is doing what the Singapore of the 90s was attempting to do to become a financial hub. “Today, the Gulf is following the same playbook and is creating regulatory regimes,” he says. “These regulations might seem restrictive now. But as the technology improves and gains the regulators’ confidence, the regulations will become more lenient and standardised in the region,” he added.
Having worked with digital assets for close to a decade, founding two Web3-adjacent startups before setting up Liminal, Gupta has seen the ebbs and flows of the industry up close.
He recognises that at this stage acquiring licenses would be a slow process for Web3 companies, especially when regulations are still being developed. Added to this, technology within the sector is also growing rapidly, almost at a rate where developers are unable to keep up with the changing tide.
This can make it difficult to build the right wallet infrastructure that will be safe from unpredictable risks. “Developers are building digital wallet infrastructures which are highly insecure, inefficient and complex for a layman to understand. I thought about rethinking wallet infrastructure and how to make it more simple and secure,” Gupta said.
Getting onboard Liminal
Once a business approaches, the team runs background checks before responding to the requests. A customer team helps the business link their digital keys—used to send and receive cryptocurrencies—with Liminal’s web interface.
“Businesses can create multiple wallets for their different teams. Administrators of the account can set the security policies, decide upon how much fund can move from which wallet and when,” Gupta explains.
The UI is designed to keep the complexities of the transactions and the wallet hidden. However, if users and developers wish to see the process, it is accessible via the advanced settings.
Liminal has also used SMS notifications to alert users about the completion of transactions through wallets. For further assistance, there is customer support to address wallet and payment-related issues at the earliest.
According to Gupta, Liminal’s closest competitors are Switzerland-headquartered Copper, and Taiwan-based Cybavo, a Web3 company focused on making wallets which was recently acquired by peer-to-peer financial services firm Circle.
In February 2023, Liminal announced its new mobile application on the iOS platform. The app is powered by Multiparty Computation (MPC) technology, which allows crypto-native companies and individual users to make secure transactions on the go and improve organisational efficiency and productivity.
The Liminal app provides organisations to set up secure transactions, enabling them to move assets quickly and securely. The app comes as a breather, bringing agility to the tedious transaction signing process. Users can now add an extra layer of authentication by utilising the app's features while carrying out a transaction. This way, they can have complete control over their keys and transactions without compromising security, making it an ideal choice for Web3 organisations.
With the global digital assets management market size expected to hit the $8 billion mark by 2027, according to Markets and Markets, Liminal is looking to improve its product further.
It also has plans to get the licenses necessary to launch its custodial operations—where it will be solely responsible for the security of a user’s private keys and particularly the funds of its clients.
(Cover Image by Winona Laisram)
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