A war, two blackouts and a flat $443 billion

Chainalysis has published its 2026 adoption chapter for the Middle East and North Africa, covering July 2025 to June 2026. The region's crypto economy slipped from 449.6 billion dollars to 443.3 billion, a decline of 1.4 percent that tracks the global rate. Sixteen of the 24 markets with measurable data grew; the total stayed flat because Türkiye and the UAE, together 56 percent of the regional economy, moved in opposite directions.

The UAE grew 32 percent to 104.8 billion dollars, reaching 73 percent of Türkiye's size, which Chainalysis says positions it to overtake Türkiye as the region's largest crypto economy as early as the 2027 period. Türkiye remained the largest at 144.5 billion but contracted modestly as a licensing transition reshaped its service sector; at the end of the period it began requiring every crypto asset service provider to hold a licence from the regulator SPK. Over the same year, domestic peer-to-peer stablecoin volume there grew fivefold to 3.56 billion.

Iran is the starkest case. Its activity was shaped by two internet blackouts and the second Iran conflict, which began on 28 February 2026; bitcoin transactions fell by as much as 90 percent during the acute phases and climbed back as users adapted.

The report's reading of the region is that the bear market, which cut crypto's total market capitalisation in half, barely dented on-chain activity, and that what shaped MENA was the regional disruption layered on top of it. Institutional capital concentrated in the UAE as a regulated hub, and where Türkiye's exchanges paused to meet new licensing rules, retail users moved to wallet-to-wallet transfers instead.