Aggressive advertising aimed at luring international start-ups and cryptocurrency companies to locate their business at Malta’s new “blockchain epicentre” in St Julian's is just a marketing ploy as there are no such plans for the construction of a 42-storey office tower, the Times of Malta is informed.

The “Crypto-Tower” stand at the Delta summit.

Introduced during the recent Delta Summit, where Malta launched itself as the new ‘Blockchain Island’, a state-of-the-art mega skyscraper in the middle of Paceville, dubbed the “Crypto-Tower”, was introduced at one of the summit’s stands.

Publicity material on the project said that “Malta has the opportunity to become the ‘Silicon Valley’ of the blockchain industry” and “now that the crypto world has a nation, the Crypto-Tower will be its epicentre and offer the first ecosystem fully dedicated to the blockchain”.

The publicity shows a 42-storey skyscraper dubbed as the ‘Crypto-Tower’ to be built in St Julian’s following a government-driven marketing campaign depicting Malta as the Blockchain Island.

Showing estate agents Remax and J. Portelli Projects as the Crypto-Tower partners, blockchain entrepreneurs Guillaume Chauvet, Patrice Macar and Maxence Bessonnaud invite potential businesses to contact them and reserve a place at the Crypto Tower.

However, research conducted by Times of Malta, including at the Planning Authority, showed that the so-called Crypto Tower is just a marketing tool, as the tower shown on the adverts portrays just an image and nothing else.

If this was true, rest assured we would know about it. This Crypto-Tower is very strange

PA sources were unaware of any such building in the pipeline as no applications have been filed for the construction of the “Crypto-Tower”.  Other estate agents said that this might be a spoof as they had never heard anything about the planned mega-project.

“If this was true, rest assured we would know about it. This Crypto-Tower is very strange. Something jars,” a seasoned real estate businessmen told Times of Malta.

When contacted, a spokesman for Remax admitted that there was no such tower in the pipeline.

“This was just a marketing exercise at the Delta Summit as there are no plans to have a fully-fledged new tower in the middle of Paceville dedicated to cryptocurrencies and blockchain companies,” he said.

“The picture shown in the marketing of this ‘Crypto Tower’ is just a marketing tool,” he explained.

“It is true that we are currently building an office block in Paceville with the intention to offer it to cryptocurrency and blockchain companies.

“However, this will not be anything close to a tower. It’s just a normal office block some six to seven stories high.”

Asked to explain how both at the Delta Summit and on online marketing, a fully-fledged modern tower was being shown, the spokesman said that this was a kind of a “mock up”.

Stating that excavation works on the small office block are already in full swing, the Remax representative said that “the idea is to provide co-working space to start-ups”.

He said that response to their initiative was very high.

In recent months, the government has made enormous efforts to try to lure international blockchain and cryptocurrency companies to the country, mounting aggressive marketing campaigns abroad dubbing Malta as “the Blockchain Island”.

Cryptocurrencies – a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange to secure financial transactions – is still highly unregulated and many countries have banned their use.

Many governments and banking authorities are very wary of the system amid concerns that these digital assets may become tools for anonymous web criminals.