One of Malta’s biggest real estate names has admitted to lying about a new Crypto Tower to be built in the heart of St Julian’s. At the Delta Summit, Remax was displaying plans for Malta’s Crypto Tower and was asking businesses that wanted to reserve a spot in the tower to get in touch. However, the Maltese Planning Authority has received no planning application for a 42-story tower in the heart of St Julian’s from Remax or associated developers. In addition to this, no one from any of Malta’s other leading real estate firms had even heard about the mega project. In fact, a spokesperson from Remax admitted that it was just a marketing ploy.
Blockchain Island on the Rocks?
Malta appears to be stalling on its plans to become the blockchain island. The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) recently conducted its first exam for crypto agents, and only 39% of test takers managed to pass – this was after the difficulty was reduced. In addition to this, Maltese banks are creating policies that prevent citizens from fully utilizing crypto exchanges. For those few who manage to get around these policies, there is an inherent lack of crypto infrastructure – meaning there is nowhere viable to spend cryptocurrency. For a country trying to become the blockchain capital of the world, it’s a pretty poor effort so far really.
Regulations Nearly Ready
Back in July, Malta passed three crypto-friendly bills into law, meaning that it’s one step closer to becoming a fully regulated crypto environment. However, the new laws are yet to go live – invalidating Joseph Muscat’s claims that Malta is the first country to regulate blockchain and crypto activity. The MFSA has been asking companies to stop applying for regulation until the new laws become live on November 1st – the same day as the Malta Blockchain Summit.
Malta’s First Crypto Scam
You can’t fault Malta’s passion for blockchain and crypto – it’s going all out to welcome new firms to the island. Yet, it doesn’t appear to be filtering out the good from the bad, so scams have started appearing around the island already.
One fake crypto ATM scammed users out of thousands of euros and another scam created a fake ICO project. The ICO project then got listed on the new StellarX trading platform and has so far scammed investors out of hundreds of thousands of euros. The ICO scam is called the Maltese Scudo, with it having a rather sketchy looking website. Plus, the office address leads to an abandoned garage – hinting at the fact the founders have already done a runner.
Malta has a long way to go before it’s truly the blockchain island, and outright lies like we have seen from Remax are only damaging the country’s reputation. We will never know what went through Remax’s marketing team’s heads when they came up with this stunt, but it’s in utterly bad taste and will certainly give the company a bad name in crypto circles.
