Keeta, the Layer 1 blockchain company unifying cross-network payments and asset transfers with built-in compliance and 400-millisecond settlement, and ASK Group, the UAE-based investment and operating group led by His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Sultan bin Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, announced a joint venture with two defining ambitions. First, they plan to fundamentally modernize the exchange of value across borders in the Middle East and beyond. Second, they plan to tokenize physical Gulf commodities onto a public exchange accessible to global investors for the first time.

The partnership represents one of the most significant blockchain infrastructure initiatives to emerge from the Gulf region, combining sovereign institutional backing with technology that has been stress-tested at a scale comparable to the world's largest payment networks.

Eric Schmidt, the former Chief Executive of Google and one of the most closely watched technology investors of his generation, is a major investor in Keeta. The company's network was tested in collaboration with Google's Spanner engineering team, achieving 11.2 million transactions per second with 400-millisecond settlement finality. This verified achievement has drawn significant attention from institutional investors and financial technology firms evaluating next-generation settlement infrastructure globally.

"As a global financial center, the UAE is determined to lead the world as we enter this new era," said His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Sultan bin Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. "This partnership is a long-term commitment to building the infrastructure that will define how trillions of dollars in real-world assets move."

The UAE is home to one of the world's most internationally diverse populations. Millions of residents send money to families across South Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia, and beyond, collectively making the UAE one of the highest-volume remittance origination markets on earth. The UAE-India corridor alone moves approximately $20 billion annually. The UAE-Philippines, UAE-Pakistan, and UAE-Kenya corridors together add tens of billions more.

These flows represent some of the most economically significant transfers of value in the world, money that supports families, funds education, and sustains communities across developing economies. The people sending it deserve infrastructure that is fast, transparent, and affordable.

Keeta's settlement network addresses this directly. Through its anchor model—a framework in which licensed financial institutions connect their existing infrastructure to Keeta's network and become registered settlement participants—cross-border value transfer that previously required multiple intermediaries and significant time can settle in under 400 milliseconds. A sender in Dubai initiates a transfer. The anchor on the UAE side processes the transaction onto Keeta's network. The receiving anchor in India, the Philippines, or Kenya delivers local currency to the recipient. The entire process completes in under a second.

The anchor model is deliberately designed to work with existing regulated institutions rather than around them. Banks, exchange houses, payment companies, and remittance providers integrate with Keeta through a single SDK connection, accessing every corridor on the network from one technical integration rather than building bilateral relationships with counterparties in each market. For the UAE's large and well-established exchange house sector, this represents a significant operational and commercial opportunity.

"Together we are going to take assets and payment flows that have operated the same way for decades and put them on rails built for the next century," said Ty Schenk, Founder and Chief Executive of Keeta.