Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1044434
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 28 OCTOBER 2018 BUSINESS & INNOVATION B8 REBEKAH Psaila, Risk Analyt- ics Officer at MeDirect Malta, the country's third largest bank, demonstrated her financial acu- men when she scored top marks in the assessment following a course delivered by Richard Am- bery, General Counsel, Managing Partners Group (MPG), at the Malta Stock Exchange Institute. Jeremy Leach, Chief Execu- tive Officer at international as- set management group MPG, presented Rebekah with her iPad prize at the Group's office in St Julian's. Jeremy Leach commented: "MPG is delighted to recognise Rebekah's achievement. She was the highest scoring student by some margin and she clearly has a bright future. She is a great ex- ample of the talent that exists in Malta's financial services indus- try." Richard presented a three-ses- sion course on principles, mar- kets and terms of securitisation transactions. The MSE Institute runs over 100 courses and semi- nars on a range of subjects rang- ing from introductory courses to more specialised subjects such as risk management, securitisation, trusts, compliance and regula- tion, hedge fund strategies and corporate governance. MPG is an award-winning busi- ness, having been named the 2018 Alternative Investment Firm of the Year – Europe by The Euro- pean business publication, while its High Protection Fund won the Best Diversified Fund (Five Years) and Best in Insurance- Linked Investments categories in the 2018 Corporate USA Today Awards. MPG is a multi-disciplined in- vestment house that specialises in the creation, management and administration of Cayman Islands regulated mutual funds and issu- ers of asset-backed securities for SMEs, financial institutions and professional investors. The wider Group currently has over $500m assets under management. MPG recognises talent in Malta's financial services industry AS we near the year's end and the in- troduction of the DLT Regulatory Framework in Malta, it is perhaps time to look back and sum up what has hap- pened in the past exciting couple of years. It is safe to say that 2017 has been the year in which the public in gen- eral finally became aware of Bitcoin and other main cryptocurrencies, nine years after Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin's White Paper, and the year in which we've seen a meteoric rise in the price of cryptocurrencies in general. This was followed by 2018, which sig- naled one of the steepest crashes in the cryptocurrency market to date, which left various investors disillusioned with cryptocurrencies, and consequently al- so with blockchain technology in gen- eral. And that is the problem. When I got into cryptocurrencies back in 2013, I must admit: I was mainly lured by the prospect of making money and becoming rich overnight, like so many who got into the space initially. I didn't buy Bitcoin, as I deemed it to be priced too high back then at around $80. Instead, I bought Ripple. And no, before you get all excited and ask me to invite you on my non-exist- ent yacht – I sold it all, long ago, back when it was still worth nothing. Do I rue that decision? Not one single bit. As I started delving deeper into cryp- tocurrencies, I realised that this is not about making money. Blockchain tech- nology, and other DLT-based plat- forms, are about saving money. They are about efficiency, connections, and establishing decentralised trust. For years, we have made use of a de- centralised protocol, aka the Internet. However, although that same technol- ogy has connected us together, it has never truly linked us. Reliance on in- termediaries has remained there and strengthened due to the lack of trust itself. As a friend of mine told me once, Blockchain is the technology of trust. It enables us to transact, in more ways than monetary ones, directly with each other. However, I am not here to talk about the uses and benefits of Blockchain. Because the uses, so far, have been close to zero. Why am I, one of the earliest back- ers of Blockchain technology in Malta, suddenly seemingly speaking against it? The truth is, I am not. I still fully be- lieve in it. I still think it will enable humanity to transcend into the next generation. However, what we have seen in the past few years is not mass adoption, but mass speculation. They are not one and the same thing. In fact, I would go as far as to say that they are diametrically opposite con- cepts. With mass adoption, you cannot have mass speculation, because adop- tion in itself serves as an anchor for the monetary value of a thing. With mass speculation, you cannot have mass adoption, because people's greed will instill the fear of parting with the un- derlying object. Mass speculation may precede mass adoption, as happened in the dot-com bubble. History tends to repeat itself. It is laughable to think that the very concept born out of desperation to thwart the banks' greed back in 2008, has come round full circle and we are now facing the decentralisation of greed. People only care about lining their pockets with wealth, and seemingly do not care about the underlying concept or use. Despite all this enthusiasm, educa- tion is still at a worryingly low level. Blockchain technology still has not been adopted in a mainstream manner by any large company or institution. Greed has blinded us all, and greed may very well be the biggest enemy. Not the banks. Not the governments. Not the regulators. Simply put: it is time to create crypto- currencies of value, not cryptocurren- cies of speculation. The need for greed Jonathan Galea is Managing Director of Blockchain Advisory Jonathan Galea