Israeli entrepreneur leads project to strengthen post-war Gaza with dollar-linked cryptocurrency

Israeli tech entrepreneur Liran Tancman is leading a Board of Peace initiative aimed at strengthening Gaza’s post-war economy by introducing a U.S. dollar–pegged cryptocurrency, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday.

According to the report, the proposed “stablecoin” would help address a severe cash shortage in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli shekel – widely used before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack – has become scarce after more than two years of war and Israel’s halt of payments intended to curb Hamas financing.

The project’s backers argue the digital currency could help stabilize the enclave’s battered economy and lay the groundwork for recovery.

“This will not be a ‘Gaza Coin’ or a new Palestinian currency, but a means to allow Gazans to transact digitally,” a person familiar with the crypto project told the FT. 

Tancman, a veteran of the IDF’s intelligence corps, has reportedly agreed to serve as an unpaid advisor to the Board of Peace, which was formed by the Trump administration following the Gaza ceasefire in October 2025. However, Tancman has reportedly already been involved in American-led Gaza projects for the past year, even before the ceasefire. 

Other parties involved in the crypto project reportedly include members of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and the office of the former UN official Nickolay Mladenov, who was appointed as the board’s high representative for the Gaza Strip. An additional partner is the technocratic body that functions under the Board of Peace and includes locals who are neither affiliated with Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. 

The idea of linking the proposed cryptocurrency to the dollar aims to stabilize Gaza’s war-torn economy. However, the crypto project is said to be in an early phase, and many details are yet to fall into place before its potential implementation. 

There appears to be a broad consensus among pundits that rebuilding Gaza’s post-war economy will be challenging. Affluent Gazan families reportedly withdrew money from local banks and fled the enclave already at the beginning of the war, putting additional strain on Gaza’s fragile financial institutions. 

Earlier this month, the Board of Peace held its first meeting in Washington, D.C., under the leadership of U.S. President Donald Trump. A key goal of the meeting was to raise funds for the Board of Peace and its future work. During the meeting, Trump hailed the leaders of “Middle Eastern countries” for being “very generous with money,” mainly referring to the affluent Arab Gulf states.

The president also stressed that the United States “is also very generous with money, because there's nothing more important than peace.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar represented the Jewish state at the meeting in Washington, D.C. He praised Washington’s peace efforts in Gaza while stressing the need for disarming the terrorist organization Hamas and removing them from any future political influence in the coastal enclave, as stipulated in the Gaza ceasefire.