Dubai Officials: ‘DubaiCoin’ Never Received Any Governmental Approval

The government of Dubai has announced that a so-called “DubaiCoin” digital token was not given the green light by “any official authority” and that promotions of the digital currency are a scam, according to a tweet.

“DubaiCoin cryptocurrency was never approved by any official authority. The website promoting the coin is an elaborate phishing campaign that is designed to steal personal information from its visitors,” the Dubai Media Office said in a tweet.

A reportedly bogus announcement that appeared to be from Arabian Chain Technology was released on May 24 that said Dubai is “making its own digital currency” and that the token’s circulation “will be controlled by both the city itself and authorized brokers,” The Block reported, citing an archived version of the press release on the Internet Archive.

The announcement said the token would turn into Dubai’s “De-Facto Digital Currency,” while the “up-and-coming” crypto could be purchased at a starting price of 17 cents for each token through the “dub-pay.com” website.

The fake announcement circulated expediently and DubaiCoin (DBIX)’s price jumped over 1,000 percent to almost $1.50 over the timespan of a day. However, the price has dropped precipitously to approximately 20 cents per token, according to TradingView as of Friday (May 28) at approximately 3:15 p.m. Eastern Time.

Arabian Chain Technology, which does appear to be a legitimate company, does have a token called DubaiCoin (DBIX), The Block reported, but the entity said on social media, “We haven’t made such an announcement, please be cautious.” In addition, Arabian Chain Technology said in the social media post said that “http://dub-pay.com/en/ is fake and [a] scam.”