“Why are you wasting your money on Bitcoin? don’t you know it’s a pyramid scheme!” that’s what my father told me when I was having a conversation with him about my investments. After a long and tiring conversation with him, I decided to turn to YouTube to find a video explaining Bitcoin in Arabic since my father doesn’t speak English. And I was shocked when I found out that the Arab world lacks a lot of crypto content, and I was unable to find a video which did Bitcoin right.

And that’s when I decided to start doing Arabic crypto content, my channel is made for the average Joe, my goal is to make crypto simple and easy to understand. I also realized there are not a lot of women creating crypto content, so I thought I’d represent. Hence, the name “Bintcoin” where “Bint” is Arabic for “girl”. I am the Bintcoin.

That’s how my journey started. I uploaded my first video in July of 2021 and it’s been one hell of a year. People are eager to learn about crypto and NFTs, and how this technology can benefit them.

I realized the barrier to understanding crypto and NFTs is the tech itself. It’s hard enough to teach someone how to create a wallet and navigate the space safely. So, I felt like the user interface is the thing that should change, not the people. And that’s where my partners and I decided to create ASLY, a MENA-centric NFT marketplace.

“ASLY” is Arabic for “Authentic”, because NFTs are a certificate of authenticity. The idea behind it is to remove all barriers to buy and sell NFTs. You can log in with your email address or wallet, you can buy NFTs with crypto or credit cards, you can trade NFTs in the secondary market, and you can cash out your money to your bank account. Transitioning from Web2 to Web3 doesn’t happen overnight and that’s how the ALSY team bridges the gap between the two.

The question then becomes, “Wen mass adoption?” I personally don’t think it will take that long. I feel like we’ll see major institutions adopting blockchain technologies in the next 5 years. The general population just needs a better user experience. Once we have wallets and applications that are user friendly then we’ll see everyone jumping in. Until then, if you’re curious about the space then learn as much as you can about it. And start small though because you’re likely to lose a few bits and pieces along the way and that’s okay, we all did!