Abu Dhabi-based financial infrastructure provider Fuze has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Miden, an a16z-backed blockchain architecture firm, to accelerate the institutional adoption of digital assets. The partnership targets a critical bottleneck for mainstream banks across the Middle East and Africa: utilizing decentralized networks without exposing sensitive commercial data or customer activity.
Quick Facts
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Fuze and Miden partner for private digital asset infrastructure.
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The collaboration targets mainstream banking across emerging markets.
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Technology enables blockchain privacy while maintaining strict regulatory compliance.
Solving the Public Ledger Privacy Problem
The majority of enterprise blockchain initiatives stall before widespread deployment due to the transparent nature of public ledgers. On open blockchains, anyone can trace and analyze transaction histories, creating an immediate conflict with data protection requirements in traditional finance.
By integrating Miden’s privacy-first, zero-knowledge network with Fuze’s established distribution channels, the partnership aims to build systems that protect commercial confidentiality. The underlying architecture ensures that customer data remains private while still allowing regulatory bodies to audit activity and enforce strict KYC and AML compliance.
For banks, fintechs, and enterprises across the Middle East, this capability clears a major hurdle, opening the door to practical applications in remittances, wealth management, and B2B payments.
Transitioning to Regulated Financial Use Cases
The collaboration highlights the UAE’s rapid emergence as a global hub for regulated digital finance. By building privacy-preserving rails, both firms plan to shift digital assets out of isolated experimentation and into practical deployment.
“When blockchain meets financial services, the real challenge isn’t the technology; it’s balancing privacy, interoperability, and regulatory compliance,” said Mohammed Ali Yusuf, CEO of Fuze. He noted that Miden’s infrastructure directly complements his firm’s regional reach, establishing a strong foundation for widespread adoption.
Azeem Khan, co-founder of Miden, emphasized the necessity of enterprise-grade tools tailored for actual market conditions. “For digital assets to move beyond experimentation, they need infrastructure that institutions and regulators can actually deploy in the real world,” Khan said. “Working with Fuze allows us to design systems that pair privacy and control with regulatory clarity.”
About Fuze and Miden
Founded by traditional finance and fintech veterans from Visa, Checkout.com, and Goldman Sachs, Fuze is a regulated digital assets infrastructure provider in the MENA region. The company operates a Digital-Assets-as-a-Service platform, enabling banks and fintechs to embed crypto products natively, alongside an Over-The-Counter (OTC) trading desk for institutions and high-net-worth individuals.
Miden, which spun out of Polygon Labs as an independent entity, builds zero-knowledge-powered networks that allow financial applications to scale using both public and private transactions. The company recently raised $25 million in seed funding co-led by a16z crypto, 1kx, and Hack VC to advance compliant, privacy-focused blockchain infrastructure.
Source: Zawya
