Saeed Al Fahim’s Tharwa uses real-world assets and Sharia alignment for its regulated UAE stablecoin, thUSD.
The conversation around crypto is changing. The industry’s early chapters focused on decentralization and disruption. Today, the attention is shifting toward integration. Sovereign debt onchain. Commodity backed tokens. Programmable money that connects to tangible value.
In this evolving landscape, the United Arab Emirates has become an increasingly important jurisdiction. And at the center of that movement is Saeed Al Fahim.
Saeed’s path into Web3 differs from many of his global peers. Before launching Tharwa, he operated within large scale commercial and industrial portfolios, managing complex supply chains and capital deployment across sectors.
That background instilled a particular mindset. Risk must be measurable. Governance must be clear. Capital must be productive. When he entered the stablecoin sector, he carried those principles with him.
Most stablecoins are designed as digital representations of fiat reserves. They serve an essential function in trading and settlement, but their backing capital often remains static. Tharwa takes a broader approach.
Its stablecoin, thUSD, is backed one to one by a diversified portfolio of high quality real world assets, including Sukuk, gold, UAE linked real estate exposure, and short term sovereign instruments. The structure resembles a conservatively managed fund more than a simple custodial reserve.
An internal AI powered treasury system continuously evaluates macro signals and portfolio exposure, seeking balance between preservation and productivity. The aim is not to transform a stablecoin into a speculative instrument. It is to prevent capital from sitting idle when it can be structured responsibly.
The UAE’s regulatory environment has been instrumental in enabling this model. Abu Dhabi Global Market and Dubai’s VARA have created licensing regimes that give digital asset firms clarity on compliance obligations. That certainty has encouraged serious capital to engage.
Operating within this framework allows Tharwa to design its products with audit standards and governance structures aligned to institutional expectations. It also places the protocol within reach of asset originators who think in decades rather than quarters. For Saeed, this geographic and regulatory positioning is not incidental. It is foundational.
Another defining component of Tharwa’s structure is Sharia alignment. By ensuring that yield generation stems from asset productivity rather than interest based lending, the protocol connects blockchain infrastructure with Islamic finance principles.
This is more than branding. It opens access to pools of capital that historically remained cautious toward conventional DeFi models. In a region where faith aligned finance intersects with sovereign scale investment, that alignment carries strategic weight.
The real world asset narrative is gaining momentum globally. Financial institutions from New York to Singapore are exploring tokenized treasuries and digital settlement layers.
Saeed Al Fahim’s strategy suggests that the long term winners in this space will not be those who move fastest, but those who move most coherently. Asset quality, regulatory clarity, and governance discipline are likely to define endurance.
As the UAE continues positioning itself as a hub for tokenized finance, figures capable of bridging traditional capital and programmable systems will play an outsized role.
Through Tharwa, Saeed is attempting to demonstrate that digital money does not need to abandon financial orthodoxy to innovate. It can evolve from it.
