During an address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was not shy about his support for digital currency, calling it the “inevitable future of money.”
“In Malta, we have launched ourselves as the Blockchain Island by being the first jurisdiction worldwide to regulate this new technology that previously existed in a vacuum.”
Malta has long been a leader in the cryptocurrency space, by providing the type of clear legal framework that advocates in the United States are pushing to replicate.
Malta’s legislation has attracted blockchain startups from around the globe, with the world’s leading crypto exchange exchange, Binance, spearheading the big shift to Malta. In addition to Binance, Muscat has welcomed with open arms exchanges such as BitBay from Poland and the expansion of OKEx from Hong Kong.
Muscat stressed the importance of being open to new technologies, as “solutions do not come from closing doors. The digital economy needs to be seen as an opportunity.”
“We are currently in exciting technological times.With the lightning pace of current technological advance, each incredible piece of new innovation could hold a new solution to problems that may have been persisting for decades.”
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He said some people are taking an antagonistic view of the emerging technology. Fearing new types of poverty, loss of rights and loss of jobs, skeptics are being “as myopic as those advocating for horse carts not to be replaced by motor vehicles,” according to Muscat.
He went on to list the ways that the blockchain can “counter regressive, aggressive and reactionary politics.”
“These distributed ledger technologies can provide solutions to healthcare systems where patients have real ownership of their medical records. Emissions trading systems can be taken to the next level. We can help verify that humanitarian assistance is reaching its intended destination. We can make sure that nobody is deprived of their legitimate property because of compromised data. Corporations will be able to become more accountable to their shareholders. States will need to move from hoarding information on citizens to regulating an environment where citizens trust the handling of their own data.”
