About · The story + the standards

About Bitcoiners.ae

UAE-focused. Bitcoin-only. Founder-led. Built because the resource we wanted didn't exist.

Who's behind this

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Ben

Founder · Dubai · LinkedIn

Tech-savvy professional based in Dubai. I've lived in the UAE for eight years — long enough to call it home, long enough to watch the region's crypto landscape shift from suspicion to leadership.

I bought my first Bitcoin in 2016. Since then I've been a long-term holder, self-custodier, and increasingly an active builder in the Bitcoin + Lightning + AI space. I run my own Bitcoin node and Lightning node, follow Optech newsletter every week, and have opinions about hardware wallets I'm happy to defend.

I started bitcoiners.ae because UAE residents asking honest questions about Bitcoin — "Which exchange should I use? Do I pay tax on this? How do I self-custody from Dubai?" — kept hitting one of two walls: either generic global content that didn't answer the UAE-specific bits, or low-effort affiliate-farms that pushed whatever paid the most.

Neither served the person I'd want to send to a resource. So I built one.

What we do here

Bitcoiners.ae is the editorial and tools platform for Bitcoin in the UAE. Specifically:

Everything we publish is Bitcoin-only. We don't cover altcoins, NFTs, or anything that isn't Bitcoin. That's a choice — we want the site to be useful to readers who've decided Bitcoin is the only digital asset worth their attention.

How we think about content

We publish under a few principles that we think matter:

  • Bitcoin-only. If it's not Bitcoin or Lightning, we don't cover it. We don't hedge with "crypto."
  • Real facts, dated and sourced. Regulatory facts cite VARA, SCA, FTA, DIFC, or other primary sources. We update when reality changes.
  • UAE-specific where it matters. AED pricing, UAE shipping, VARA rules, FTA tax positions. Generic content gets cut.
  • No price predictions. Bitcoin will do what it does. We don't pretend to know what the price will be next week.
  • Self-custody first. We never recommend leaving meaningful holdings on exchanges. The whole point of Bitcoin is "not your keys, not your coins."
  • Honest about affiliates. See below.

How we make money

We're transparent about this because every site like this has economic incentives, and pretending otherwise is dishonest.

Affiliate links. When you click through to OKX, Binance, BitOasis, Ledger, or Amazon UAE from our site and make a purchase, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. These are clearly marked with sponsored/no-commission badges where relevant. Our recommendations don't change based on commission rate — Coldcard and Bitkey have no affiliate program and we still recommend them when they fit. See our full affiliate disclosure.

Coming: software products. The DCA bot launching in 2026 will have free + paid tiers ($0 self-host, $49/mo managed). The same model is being explored for additional services.

What we don't do. We don't sell personal data. We don't run display ads. We don't accept paid "reviews" or sponsored posts disguised as editorial. We don't put affiliate links in news commentary or analysis pieces. Every external commercial link is explicit and labeled.

How we run this site

Bitcoiners.ae runs on infrastructure we own and operate: a Bitcoin Core full node, an LND Lightning node, and a self-hosted Mempool block-explorer instance. Analytics are via self-hosted Plausible — privacy-friendly, cookie-free, no Google Analytics. Email signups go to a SQLite database we control. Source code (Next.js + TypeScript) is in our private Gitea + mirrored to GitHub.

The site uses our own design system (Stack mark logo, Satoshi typography, bae-* design tokens) and is built mobile-first with Lighthouse scores of 99/100/100/100 across performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO.

Why this matters: we believe the same sovereignty principles that make Bitcoin worthwhile also apply to digital infrastructure. We don't want our content depending on platforms that could deplatform us. The site is portable and self-sovereign by design.

Get in touch

For editorial corrections, partnership inquiries, listing in the UAE Bitcoiners directory, family-office consultations, or anything else: