ADI Chain: The First Institutional L2 for Stablecoins & RWAs in MENA
What is ADI Chain?
ADI Chain represents a significant milestone in institutional blockchain adoption. ADI Foundation is founded by Sirius International Holding, the private sector force behind Abu Dhabi's Emerging Tech Economy. ADI Chain establishes regulated blockchain infrastructure designed for financial services at scale.
The project aims to bring 1 billion people onchain by 2030 by serving global markets, including its core markets across the Middle East, Asia and Africa that have limited access to blockchain technology and the real-world benefits it can provide their societies and citizens.
Why ZKsync?
ADI evaluated multiple blockchain architectures before selecting ZKsync as the secure gateway connecting regulated financial infrastructure to Ethereum. ZKsync uniquely combines hyperscale performance, compliance-ready execution, and direct access to global liquidity while preserving institutional control. This enables financial systems to operate onchain without compromising trust, governance, or regulatory alignment.
The Implementation
Deploying a Future-Proof Architecture
ADI Chain is built on the ZK Stack, enabling full EVM compatibility while introducing a modular architecture designed to evolve over time. Through the Atlas upgrade, new virtual machines and execution environments can be introduced without disrupting existing applications or developer tooling. This ensures institutions can continuously adopt new technologies without rebuilding critical infrastructure.
Achieving Hyperscale Performance
Modern financial networks demand infrastructure capable of supporting millions of users and continuous transaction flow. Airbender allows ADI Chain to scale efficiently on commodity hardware while maintaining cryptographic guarantees anchored to Ethereum, enabling sustainable growth toward global adoption targets.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about ADI Chain.
ADI Chain is an Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain purpose-built for stablecoins, real-world assets (RWAs), and cross-border payments in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Founded by Sirius International Holding through the ADI Foundation, it runs on ZKsync's open-source ZK Stack and aims to bring 1 billion users onchain by 2030. ADI Chain supports the first Dirham-denominated stablecoin (DDSC) and targets over 60 million Mobile M-Pesa users for onchain access.
ADI Chain selected ZKsync for three key reasons: first, ZK proofs provide Ethereum-level security without exposing transaction data; second, the ZK Stack offers full EVM compatibility so developers can build with Solidity and standard tooling; and third, native interoperability enables ~1-second cross-chain transfers with minutes-to-Ethereum finality. This combination of privacy, compliance readiness, and access to global liquidity made ZKsync the only architecture that met ADI's institutional requirements.
ADI Chain achieves ~1-second ZK-proven finality with transaction costs under $0.01. Powered by ZKsync's Airbender proving system, the network scales to thousands of transactions per second on commodity hardware while every transaction is cryptographically verified and anchored to Ethereum. The modular architecture also supports future upgrades to new virtual machines without disrupting existing applications.
DDSC is the first Dirham-denominated stablecoin, issued on ADI Chain. It is designed for institutional cross-border payment flows across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, providing regulated onchain access to digital finance in regions where blockchain infrastructure is still emerging.
ADI Chain serves global markets with a core focus on the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. These regions have limited access to blockchain technology, and ADI Chain provides regulated infrastructure to bring real-world financial benefits to their societies and citizens, targeting over 60 million M-Pesa mobile payment users for onchain access.
The ZK Stack is ZKsync's open-source framework for building custom Layer 2 blockchains on Ethereum. It provides full EVM compatibility, a modular architecture that supports future virtual machine upgrades through the Atlas upgrade, and native interoperability enabling approximately 1-second cross-chain transfers with minutes-to-Ethereum finality.
ADI Chain is anchored to Ethereum through zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. Every transaction is cryptographically verified and settled on Ethereum, providing Ethereum-level security without exposing transaction data. Powered by ZKsync's Airbender proving system, this architecture ensures all activity is validated on commodity hardware and permanently recorded on Ethereum's mainnet.
