Bitcoin MENA mixes fashion, physics, and policy
Attendees can move straight from debates about mining’s role in energy grids to conversations about what self-custody looks like in everyday life
With Bitcoin MENA back in Abu Dhabi next week, the agenda reads less like a typical conference schedule and more like a snapshot of how Bitcoin is being explored across economics, culture, energy, and policy in the Middle East. The program moves deliberately between abstract theory and lived reality, reflecting how the region is increasingly engaging with Bitcoin on its own terms.
One of the earliest sessions digging into this bigger picture is How Bitcoin Turns Economics into Science?, hosted by Salahuddin Khawaja, founder of Hypermode, on the conference’s first morning.
Khawaja, who has been in the ecosystem since 2014, comes from a deeply technical background. He frames Bitcoin not just as money, but as a system that introduces measurable, testable rules into economic behaviour – treating economic assumptions as hypotheses rather than ideology. The session sets a clear tone for the event, foregrounding analysis over advocacy.
Bitcoin as a statement
In a completely different corner of the agenda is Expressing Bitcoin Through Fashion. Creative founders like Lena Art, of LENA – Wear Your Statement, and Abu Akkuc, the mind behind 21Million Fashion, make the case that style has become one of the most visible entry points into Bitcoin culture.
Their session explores how clothing and design communicate decentralized values, emphasizing how Bitcoin may shape identity and cultural movements, not only transactions.
Joining them on the panel are Neil Jacobs of FOMO21, a market strategist and educator in the Bitcoin space, alongside Carlos Estrada, founder of Coin Vigilante, a company creating limited-edition Bitcoin-inspired timepieces built around scarcity, precision, and proof-of-work.
Questions of personal responsibility and ownership also surface elsewhere on the agenda in sessions such as The Culture of Self Custody, which focus on how individuals engage directly with Bitcoin rather than through intermediaries.
Lena Art of LENA – Wear Your Statement takes part in the Expressing Bitcoin Through Fashion panel at Bitcoin MENA. Photo: justlenasart.com
Mining and energy
The conference does not stay in the cultural realm for long. One of its most technical – and globally relevant – discussions centers on The Role of Bitcoin Mining in the Global Energy Transition.
The panel brings together Cambridge researcher Alexander Neumüller, Nordic mining founder Daniel Jonsson, GDA executive president Abdumalik Mirakhmedov, and UAE-based energy-tech leader Ali Alnuaimi. Their conversation focuses on how mining can stabilize grids, unlock stranded energy, and influence industrial energy systems well beyond the region.
Institutions, banking, and finance
Other sessions examine how Bitcoin is intersecting with established financial systems. Panels such as The Bitcoin Remittance Revolution and Building the Middle East’s Bitcoin Banking Stack With Islamic Finance in Mind focus on practical infrastructure – from cross-border payments to regional banking models designed around local regulatory and cultural considerations.
Rather than framing Bitcoin as a replacement, these discussions explore where it is already being integrated into existing financial realities.
The game plan
Bitcoin MENA 2025 includes sessions exploring how nations are weighing Bitcoin alongside traditional reserves and assets
The geopolitical angle continues with a panel that asks a direct question: Should the Middle East follow the Latin American playbook?
Led by BTC Inc’s Gregg Davis alongside Bitcoin Beach founders Michael Peterson and Roman Martinez, the discussion is less about copying a model for adoption than understanding which elements of bottom-up experimentation might translate – and which may not – in a Middle Eastern context.
That state-level perspective is further developed in sessions like Bitcoin in the Portfolio of Nations, which examine how governments and public institutions are beginning to assess Bitcoin as part of long-term economic strategy.
Second consecutive year
Now entering its second year in the region, Bitcoin MENA aims to advance understanding, adoption, and experimentation around Bitcoin through a deliberately wide lens – from economics and infrastructure to culture, finance, and sovereignty.
Scheduled for December 8–9, 2025, at the ADNEC Centre in Abu Dhabi, the event brings together developers, researchers, builders, policymakers, and cultural leaders approaching the same protocol from very different angles. Taken together, the agenda reflects how Bitcoin is increasingly intersecting with regional strategy rather than operating at the margins.
