Rain

Rain is a licensed cryptocurrency exchange and custodian headquartered in Bahrain, serving retail and institutional clients across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Founded in 2017 by Abdullah Almoaiqel, AJ Nelson, Joseph Dallago, and Yehia Badawy, the company became the first regulated crypto-asset services provider in the Middle East when the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) granted it a Category 3 license in 2019. Beyond its exchange, Rain also operates a business-to-business infrastructure layer for stablecoin-linked Visa card issuance that extended native Solana blockchain support in May 2025.

Background and Regulatory Standing

Rain entered the CBB's regulatory sandbox in 2017, making it one of the earliest crypto firms to voluntarily seek licensing in the Gulf. Its Bahrain entity, Rain Management W.L.L., holds a Category 3 crypto-asset services license covering brokerage, trading, and custody — the first such license issued anywhere in the Middle East and the most comprehensive class available under the CBB framework.

The company has since expanded its regulatory footprint across the region. In July 2023, Rain Trading Limited received a full Financial Services Permission from the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Financial Services Regulatory Authority, authorizing virtual asset brokerage and custody in the UAE with a direct AED on-ramp. In May 2026, Rain MENA FZE secured an in-principle approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), authorizing exchange services, broker-dealer activity, and crypto margin trading in that jurisdiction.

Rain also holds Shariah compliance certification, a meaningful differentiator for GCC-based customers seeking financial products aligned with Islamic finance principles.

Products and Services

Rain's core product is a consumer exchange available on web and iOS and Android mobile apps. The standard brokerage interface handles buy, sell, and swap transactions at a 0.5% spread per trade, with free deposits and free local fiat withdrawals.

For active traders, Rain Pro provides an order-book interface with live charts, technical indicators, and market and limit order types under a maker-taker pricing model: makers pay zero fees while takers pay 0.05% per trade.

The platform supports eight fiat currencies: Bahraini Dinar (BHD), UAE Dirham (AED), Saudi Riyal (SAR), Kuwaiti Dinar (KWD), Omani Rial (OMR), Qatari Riyal (QAR), Turkish Lira (TRY), and US Dollar (USD). More than 150 cryptocurrencies are listed across these markets, including Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP, and USDT.

An OTC desk serves institutional and high-volume clients, and licensed custody services are available for corporate clients. In partnership with Kraken, Rain has enabled trading of tokenized equity instruments for clients in eligible jurisdictions.

In May 2026, Rain became the first Bahraini crypto platform with in-app BenefitPay checkout, allowing customers to purchase cryptocurrency directly through Bahrain's national payment network without leaving the app.

Stablecoin Card Platform and Solana Integration

Beyond its exchange, Rain operates a B2B infrastructure service for stablecoin-linked Visa card issuance. This platform enables fintech companies and developers to issue branded prepaid Visa cards funded directly from stablecoin wallets, with support for both custodial and non-custodial configurations across multiple blockchain networks.

In May 2025, Rain expanded the card platform to include Solana, Tron, and Stellar. Rain describes itself as "the only Visa Principal Member offering multi-chain card issuance out of the box," giving developers access to a single API for launching stablecoin payment products across these chains. The Solana-native project KAST was among the first to deploy using the updated platform, issuing cards that connect directly to users' Solana wallets for real-time spending of Solana-based stablecoins at any Visa-accepting merchant.

Security and Custody

Rain stores approximately 98% of customer assets in multi-signature cold storage wallets, with private keys distributed across separate physical locations. The company holds Cryptocurrency Security Standard (CCSS) Level III certification, the highest rating available under that framework.

In April 2024, Rain disclosed that the Lazarus Group — North Korean state-sponsored hackers — had stolen approximately $14.8 to $16 million from company wallets through a LinkedIn-based social engineering attack targeting an employee. Rain absorbed the full loss without customer impact, though it drew criticism for the delay between the breach and public disclosure.

Funding and Growth

Rain raised a $2.5 million seed round co-led by BitMEX Ventures, followed by a $6 million Series A led by Middle East Venture Partners. In January 2022, Rain closed a $110 million Series B co-led by Paradigm and Kleiner Perkins with Coinbase Ventures participating — one of the largest raises by a MENA-based crypto company at the time.

As of 2026, Rain reports more than 2 million registered customers and over $11 billion in cumulative trading volume, up from roughly $500 million at the end of 2023. In May 2026, Rain acquired Digital Ma'arefa, a Saudi financial media group publishing The Finance Memo and Crypto Memo, signaling broader ambitions in regional financial content.

Team

Rain was co-founded by Abdullah Almoaiqel, AJ Nelson, Joseph Dallago, and Yehia Badawy. The founders set out to build compliant infrastructure for crypto access in a region where regulatory uncertainty had historically kept institutional-quality services out. The company operates across Bahrain, the UAE, and the broader Gulf Cooperation Council.