I started my visit to the Crypto Expo Dubai as always, by taking a quick walk around the exhibition to get a sense of the general sentiment, and the newest trends and spot the most exciting projects. 

Half an hour later, it hit me. Nothing caught my eye. 

Many companies are selling real estate for crypto. Many others are selling secondary passports in tax havens. Some are selling real estate in tax havens. 

There was a small merch vendor that sells Bitcoin cabs and Ethereum shirts. It only accepts cash and credit. A mining company sells Bitcoin rigs and sets them up for customers in their warehouse in Siberia, Russia. They won't tell me the coordinates to check it out on Google maps for “security reasons.” 

There was a company that enables you to bet crypto in online poker. Another is building an Islamic Sharia-compliant crypto ecosystem. Halfway through their presentation, I noticed that one of their projects is a poker play-to-earn game. I asked them how this was Sharia-compliant. They explained that players pay a fee to join a championship and get allocated rewards based on their rankings, like any other sport. 

“It is not gambling,” they told me. 

Cash poker, haram. Tournament Poker, halal. The more you live.  

There must be Lambos

There were lots of business-to-business companies that offered white-label solutions to set up all sorts of blockchain services for people with little to no prior experience. After a quick tour, I understood that anyone can set up a crypto exchange for $15,000 to $40,000 a month without hiring an in-house team. I wondered if this explains the proliferation of new crypto exchanges occupying most of the expo, competing to sign me up. 

The booths were almost exclusively filled with business development agents, marketers, and salespeople -- not founders. So, I don’t bother to introduce myself as a journalist. I headed to the booths and asked what is special about their exchange. 

Bitmarkets told me their secret sauce is that they have a proprietary token that won’t be listed anywhere else. A smart move, according to the salesman, is for me to buy it now in a private sale before it goes public. 

I asked, why will the price increase?

Because once it is listed, the exchange will burn some of it, which will logically drive the prices up, he answered. 

What is the actual utility of the token? I asked.

It will be used to pay for trading fees on the platform, and it will is used in paying for charities and social responsibility projects, he answered. 

Which charities?

Many, he said. I don’t remember now, and we will soon do more projects here in UAE. 

I couldn't find any mention of this on their website. 

Jpex exchange had a similar pitch. Private token. Supply goes down. Price goes up. Buy now and wait for your ticket to the moon. I wanted to tell the salespeople that since FTX’s collapse exchange tokens do not sound as lucrative an investment as they think they are. I kept my thoughts private. Dozens of crypto marketing companies and professionals were there, betting to prove otherwise. 

Cribex salespeople told me they have lower fees than Binance.  Koinbx told me they are huge in India, and because the country has more than 1.4 billion people, I am guaranteed liquidity and low rates. Cryptoverse did not tell me anything at all. Their sales representative gave me a card with a QR code for their website and advised me to go fetch the answers myself. A safer marketing strategy, I thought. 

Aelince is another Indian exchange that wanted me to participate in the private sale of their token at $2 a pop before it goes public. I asked about the currency’s utilities and uses. 

“There is no utility yet, but the supply is limited, and the prices will go up,” the salesman told me. I admired his honesty.

Pinksale is a crypto launchpad for new tokens, with a name that is ominously derived from pink sheets. The sheets contain lists of small-cap over-the-counter stocks from American companies that are not big nor reputable enough to be included in regular financial markets. These stocks are extremely risky and volatile, and less regulated. 

Pinksale’s website states that anyone can launch tokens in a few seconds. 

Do you do any vetting at all? I asked. 

No, they told me. 

Next on my trip, I went to the Coino exchange booth, where they had a large poster that stated, “Roberto Carlos does all transfers on Coino.” I asked the saleswoman what is special about their exchange. She answered, “Ummm, we are in Turkey.” 

I did not follow up with the second question I had in mind. If the Brazillian football legend truly endorses Coino, why did he choose a different platform when he launched a personal token last year? 

Read more: EthDenver 2023’s Optimism, Beyond the Bear. A Roundup.

A Coinex salesman said it is the best place to get a 10 percent guaranteed return every month through their trading bots. I shriek at the word “guaranteed” and take a deep breath. I know this is not going to end well.  

So, how does the bot guarantee these high returns?” I asked

Mathematics, he answered. 

Upon further inquiry, he proceeded to tell me that if I trade on my own, I may miss market volatility, but their bots will guarantee that whenever prices go down, they buy, and whenever they go up, they sell and that I have “zero risk.” This was too much for me to handle. I felt my blood pressure rising. 

I walked towards the food area for a break, but suddenly, I spotted a booth behind the cashier for a company called Defi Labs. I canceled my order. I stared at their posters with disbelief, then walked towards the booth and tried to keep a friendly demeanor towards the two saleswomen inside. 

“Excuse me, miss, your poster says that I can get up to 186.7 percent returns on my crypto. I am interested. How are you achieving that?” I asked.  

“It is managed by artificial intelligence,” one said.

She gave me a brochure with a list of expected profits: 63.24 percent annual returns on Bitcoin, 84.32 percent on Ether, 186.7 percent on USDT and 186.7 percent on BUSD. 

“I see. So, I give you $100,000, and you return $286,700 in one year. You even have the profits calculated up to the decimal points. Can you tell me a little bit about the trading strategy of this AI?” I said.

“It uses decentralized exchanges,” the second saleswoman said with a smile. 

I keep my calm and tell them with a straight non-sarcastic tone: “Look, Defi won't make it. The only way you can guarantee this kind of return is if you invest my crypto in a diversified portfolio of weapons, cocaine and human trafficking.” 

We also have a bridge to sell you

She laughs and drops the act. “I know the numbers are very unbelievable, and many people told us the same,” she said. “The technical guys know better. They can tell you how it actually works. We are just in sales, so wait for them.”

I went to grab a sandwich, got a coffee, and wished it was a non-Shariah-compliant drink instead, to help me cope with this painful tour. I went back to Defi Labs, where I saw the two Eastern European women wrapping up their shift and handing over the booth to two Asian saleswomen for the second shift. The new crew told me none of the project founders were going to be present today. 

I decided to end my tour with two final visits. Both of these exchanges had advertisements slapped on fancy Lamborghinis at the expo’s entrance, so I saved the best for last. Oxchange promises to be a decentralized exchange on Polygon with zero gas fees. How is the gas paid, then? I asked. “Well, we have our own token. When you make a trade, we will repay you an equal amount of gas fee in this token,” I was told.

The idea sounded as impractical and impossible as a perpetual machine. By this point, I was too tired to argue. I wished them good luck and told them I hoped they could prove me wrong. I went to the final booth, ABX, which has a very uninspired slogan: “A Better Exchange.”

I asked the saleswoman what was special about the ABX exchange. 

“Nothing special. We are a crypto exchange like the others, but we may have better prices,” she said. 

To be fair, they never claimed to be special — only better. 

I reframed my question: “Why are you better?”

She looked confused for a moment, then smiled as if she suddenly remembered the correct sales pitch: “We have a token.”