The Trump family’s $1.5 billion crypto deal with Canada’s Alt5 Sigma is going south.

Alt5 CEO Peter Tassiopoulos was suspended after the merger and the company has warned employees it may face lawsuits and regulatory probes, The Information reports.

The merger, announced in August and signed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. on behalf of their company, World Liberty Financial, was meant to boost both firms through a new Trump-linked WLFI cryptocurrency.

Eric Trump earlier touted the digital coin at the TOKEN 2049 conference in Dubai before it was first generated.

Now, Alt5’s stock has fallen 75% on the Nasdaq and the WLF token has plunged by nearly half its value.

Momentum, the company behind the UAE’s only licensed lottery, has launched two online betting and casino platforms, TrueWin and Dream Island, Arabian Gulf Business Insights reports.

Both sites offer casino games and sports betting and are already live.

Their launch comes as the UAE weighs a historic policy shift that could generate an estimated $6.6 billion in annual gaming revenue.

Both TrueWin and Dream Island were registered in March 2023, several months before the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority was established.

It comes as the UAE Lottery announced on Tuesday that it would be revamping its flagship Lucky Draw, just weeks after handing out its first Dh100 million ($27 million) grand prize. 

Aramco Ventures, a VC arm of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, is opening an office in Paris to oversee hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments in artificial intelligence planned across Europe.

While heavy red-tape has hindered Europe’s ability to compete on the scale of the U.S. and China, it has produced some successful AI startups, including Paris-based Mistral, a maker of large language models, which counts Sanabil, the tech arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, among its investors.

Ahmad O. Al-Khowaiter, Aramco’s Executive Vice President of Technology and Innovation, highlighted Aramco’s growing collaborations with French companies and plans for deeper investment in next-generation technologies across Europe at the Adopt AI International Summit in Paris this week.

On Sunday, French quantum computing start-up Pasqal installed its most powerful system at Aramco’s datacenter in Dhahran.

Another part of Aramco’s VC arm, Wa’ed Ventures, was an early backer in Pasqal’s 2023 funding round and has been working with the company to adapt its technology to the kingdom’s industrial needs.

“This will expand quantum computing expertise in the region, and accelerate quantum applications in the energy, materials, and industrial sectors,” Al-Khowaiter said. “We are committed to our partnerships here, and also to the infectious spirit of innovation that surrounds the French tech industry.”

Abu Dhabi’s state oil company ADNOC is moving ahead with a $150 billion capital spending plan for the next five years aimed at boosting growth and meeting rising global energy demand.

During a meeting in Abu Dhabi on Monday, which was chaired by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, the company’s board approved its 2026-2030 spending program, noting that its oil reserves have grown to 120 billion stock tank barrels, up from 113 billion. Natural gas reserves have also increased.

ADNOC is focused on “leveraging advanced technologies and AI to future-proof our business,” Group CEO Dr. Sultan Al Jaber told the board. “We will continue to transform how we create value at speed and scale, driving a new era of intelligence-powered performance, operating at the intersection of AI and energy, to deliver growth for the UAE.”

ADNOC reported that its investment arm, XRG, has grown in value to about $151 billion since its November 2024 launch and will target global deals in chemicals, natural gas, and renewables as part of the UAE’s energy diversification efforts.

The board also approved a new operating company for its Ghasha offshore concession, which is expected to produce 1.8 billion cubic feet of gas and 150,000 barrels of oil and condensates per day.

Two new liquor stores are under construction in the cities of Jeddah and Dammam as Saudi Arabia further eases restrictions on alcohol in a bid to draw more foreign talent to reside in the kingdom, Reuters reports.

It comes after reports that the country’s only sanctioned liquor store, in Riyadh, is now allowing a larger group of foreign residents to make purchases.

Non-Muslims holding a permit under the Premium Residency program, which grants visas to entrepreneurs, investors, property owners and talented individuals, are now allowed to purchase alcohol in the store, which was previously reserved for diplomats.

Loosening rules around alcohol has been a delicate task for the Saudi leadership, which has attempted to appease conservatives by cracking down on nightclubs known as “lounges” in recent months. 

Providing dependable internet connections is the latest battleground in competition between Gulf airlines.

The rivalry on international routes between Emirates and Qatar Airways is being stoked by the increased availability of Starlink, the low-orbit satellite network developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Arabian Gulf Business Insight reports.

While the Qatar carrier has already equipped more than 100 of its long-haul aircraft with Starlink’s service, Dubai-based Emirates is trying to catch up with a new fleet-wide rollout of Starlink that will enable streaming videos, playing video games and making voice calls simultaneously.

Budget airline Flydubai, meanwhile, is preparing to offer Starlink’s high-speed WiFi as a standard feature rather than a premium perk.

Property developers in the UAE are raising billions through bonds and private credit to take advantage of the ongoing real estate boom, as banks tighten lending to private developers.

Dollar bond and sukuk issuances have grown more than 12 times to $6 billion since 2021, Bloomberg reports.

Heavyweight developers Emaar, Aldar and DAMAC, as well as emerging names like Sharjah’s Arada, have been regularly issuing Islamic bonds as they compete to buy prime land.

The rise in issuances has seen maturities due by 2030 grow to about $8 billion and some analysts are now flagging risks from the boom-time spending.

Abu Dhabi’s Lunate investment firm is spearheading a new push to bolster the UAE’s global position in developing artificial intelligence technology.

The two-year-old Abu Dhabi asset manager is now considering a possible investment of up to $1 billion in MGX, which was established last year by the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund and its G42 tech unit to channel money into AI, Bloomberg reports.

Lunate, which works with many of the world’s largest firms including BlackRock, Blackstone, CVC Capital Partners and Brookfield Asset Management, raised about $17 billion in 2024, of which it has already invested about $13.5 billion, the news agency said.

Among its largest backers are Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ and Chimera Investment, which are both led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE National Security Advisor and Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi.

The UAE government, meanwhile, announced a $1 billion “AI for development” initiative at the G20 summit in Johannesburg to expand AI infrastructure across Africa, and integrate the technology into education, agriculture, health care and climate adaptation.