This year, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been ranked No.1 amongst countries that raised funds to token sales in the list of crypto data firm CoinSchedule.

CoinSchedule has listed the Gulf nation, the Cayman Islands and Singapore as top 3 contributors to digital token sales, with $210.5 million, $103.8 million and $89.7 million respectively. Market data showed that UAE has solely contributed 25% of fund raised since this January. This is surprising since UAE did not even make it to the list of top 10 countries for token sales last year.

Reported by Bloomberg, there are two game changers that drove the rise of UAE in Coincheck’s ranking, which are Bolton Coin and GCBIB token sales. While Bolton Coin supports investors in crypto mining and real estate, GCBIB focuses on developing banking products for cryptocurrency users.

“We are seeing the continuation of the move away from the USA due to regulatory concerns.” CEO of CoinSchedule, Alex Buelau answered in an interview with Bloomberg, highlighting the fact that USA came in 6th place on the list.

Earlier this year, UAE and Saudi Arabia has reportedly collaborated on the creation of a new cryptocurrency, and have launched a joint pilot crypto. The new jointly developed pilot crypto is “strictly targeted for banks at an experimental phase with the aim of better understanding the implications of blockchain technology and facilitating cross-border payments.”