On Tuesday, August 22, the Oman Ministry of Transport, communication, and information technology (MTCIT) officially launched an innovative data hosting and crypto mining center. The launching event was preceded by Hamoud al Maawali, an engineer at MTCIT.
The new mining center is in Salalah Free Zone, a special economic area that links Oman to other viable markets. Surprisingly Salalah Free Zone offers investors 100% ownership at zero tax.
Oman Opens News Mining Facility
The report demonstrated that Exahertz will operate the crypto mining center in partnership with the Moonwalk system. The new mining facility aims at digitizing the Oman economy by adopting advanced technology, including crypto and blockchain.
Primarily the oil businesses constitute a bigger share of Oman’s exports. The attempt to digitize the Oman economy influenced the launching of a similar mining center last November. At that time, it was reported that the existing mining facility costed $389 million, which equates to 150 million Oman rials to launch.
In contrast, the authority incured $350 million to establish the Salalah mining center. A breakdown of the construction cost revealed that the new mining facility will utilize the advanced hardware developed by Bitmain Technologies.
The newly launched mining center will deploy 15000 machinery in October. At present, the mining center is powered by 2000 digital machines that generate 11 megawatts.
Oman to Introduce New Crypto Regulations
Despite the launching of the mining facility, Omani policymakers are seeking to create a friendly environment for crypto. In July, the regulator introduced a consultation report outlining the national regulatory framework for digital assets.
Under the proposed legislation, digital assets service providers (DASPs) will be required to set up shops in Oman to comply with the regulations. A review of the consultation paper indicated that DASPs would be needed to store some assets on the hot wallet.
Also, the new legislation will require crypto firms to conduct audits and reveal the proof of reserves to improve transparency in the crypto industry.
Overview of Consultation Paper
In the report, the Sultanate of Oman requested the public to share their valuable input before August 17. The Omani regulators have urged the public to provide insights on licensing requirements, risk management, corporate governance, and risk management that should be enacted. Beyond this, policymakers in the Arabic country plan to ban the issuance of private tokens.
The public comment will later guide the regulators to formulate the final draft of the crypto regulation. The proposed law aims at reducing market abuse in the crypto industry.
Interestingly, the development of the crypto regulatory regime started in 2020, aiming at supervising the crypto activities in Oman. At the initial rule-making process, the capital market authority (CMA) agreed to work with National Committee for Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing and the country’s central bank to formulate policies that will improve the attractiveness of the digital sector.