Next month the Maltese government will sign a commitment to have its very first application working on blockchain, according to Silvio Schembri, Parliamentary Secretary for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation.
Mr Schembri announced this during the ‘My blockchain’ educational clinic organised by Finance Malta which was very well attended by not only people in the financial services industry but also from different sectors of the economy.
While congratulating Finance Malta for organising this clinic, Mr Schembri said: “The government is currently working on devising a national blockchain strategy that will lead the country to having a new regulator for the sector and a robust legal framework that will facilitate the use of blockchain technology in offering new applications for the market, whilst making life easier for many.”
The seminar was introduced by Finance Malta chairman Kenneth Farrugia, who spoke about the challenges of blockchain in today’s ever-changing financial services industry. Mr Farrugia explained that the objective of this seminar was to demystify this disruptive technology and explain how it will impact not just the financial services industry but also other business sectors.
The seminar, which was facilitated by blockchain consultant Steve Tendon, kicked off with a presentation by James Catania entitled ‘How does it work?’. Loui Mercieca, chief software architect at Agilis, followed with a presentation on smart contracts and how they work and can be written. He was followed by Ian Gauci, founding partner, GTG Advocates, with another presentation on the challenges that blockchain poses to legislators and regulators.
Max Ganado, senior partner at Ganado Advocates, spoke about what opportunities blockchain offers for intellectual property, while Joseph Borg, vice-president of Bitmalta, expounded on what is happening in Malta to promote the knowledge and adoption of the technology. The final speaker was Dario Azzopardi, CEO of 3Group, who described the core of the technology in terms of the hardware used to support the blockchain networks.
The seminar came to an end with and question and answer session, which saw the participation of a number of delegates present at the seminar.