The New Maltese Falcon: On the Trail of Dr. Werner & Partner

I flew to Malta this week.

I was on the trail of the latest phenomenon to hit the currency markets: crypto-currency.

To that end I had arranged a meeting with Dr. Werner & Partner. This is a law firm based at Sliema with 30 plus employees. As one would expect it has all the trappings of the eminently respectable – if often dull – world of corporate law.

One might not suspect, however, that Dr. Werner & Partner is at the center of global crypto-currency. Saying that you could be forgiven for not realizing that Malta is at the cutting edge in development in the world of crypto, notably bitcoin. But not only is the Mediterranean island the host to many of the global firms who trade in these new currencies, but it is also at the forefront of the regulatory framework that governs and safeguards that trade.

I was chatting over breakfast with both Jörg and Philipp. These are the men behind the crypto-currency work of Dr. Werner & Partner. Looking out to the calm blue seas before us as we sat at a bayside restaurant, I was struck at how these two were nothing approximate to what I had been expecting of traders in crypto. Then again, when it comes to bitcoin, blockchain, et al I’m not sure what any of us do expect. For many the world of crypto-currency seems to be half-myth and half mystery. So it was definitely time to find out more.

So first off, what I learned was that here in Malta, it is an industry that is well regulated by the local authorities. So much so it appears to be a canny sign of where this is all heading – and the signs are this is somewhere good. Once governments start to position themselves as the ‘home’ of anything then you know that something is afoot. There are many places in which you can trade in crypto. Be warned you can take your chances in places I would prefer not to mention. Malta is a place that I’m happy to mention though. That’s principally on account of how it is policed there.

To be honest though, it is also to do with the professionalism and knowledge exhibited by Dr. Werner & Partner when I met them. After breakfast I was invited to take a look around their offices located a short walk from the fashionable sea front at Sliema. There they have a thriving business, with a bright and ambitious team around them. Thanks to Malta they appear to have a beautiful location in which to work, live and prosper.

Any ideas you had of crypto as some shady, unregulated business – a free-for-all of some sort- well you can forget about that idea when talking to Herr Doktor and his business partner. Both Dr. Jörg and Phillip hail from Germany, but they have made their lives and – fortunes – in Malta. They speak well of the business opportunities the island affords, but in glowing terms of the lifestyle on offer. There are the obvious ways in which wealth and privilege bring a lifestyle, but, also, how safe Malta is, how friendly, how relaxed. It appears this place is still good for one’s heart and waist but, also, now, for one’s bank balance too.

Dr. Werner & Partner are at the forefront of something else though. It’s a movement. Today the whole bitcoin/blockchain revolution is still happening so it is difficult to predict where it is going to end or when. But, be under no illusions we are in the midst of something different happening in the way the world trades money. Just as we are in the throes of a tech revolution that makes the Industrial Revolution look tame so we are in a world that is changing so fast through technology that even Sci-fi can’t keep up with it. And Cryto-currency is part of this.

Thinking about it it was naive to expect that all around would be changed, transformed through the Digital Revolution but somehow ‘money’ would remain the same, almost the ‘same’ since the knights guarded the wealth of Malta in the Middle Ages.

Malta is a wonderful place to live and work. I know; I have done both here.

It is also a place so full of history I don’t know where to start. From Neo-lithic times, to the Romans, to St. Paul being shipwrecked here, and on to the knights, and the battles that were fought in more recent times. This beautiful and today peaceful jewel of an island in the Mediterranean Sea has had its share of pain and woe, fire and musket, invasion and defense…

Later that day I was thinking of this history as I walked alone around the walled medieval city of Medina. This was the former capital of Malta. It was also an impregnable fortress for any pirates or invaders who chanced this way down through the centuries. In some ways the new crypto related regulations here in Malta are the latest Maltese walls. These new walls protect those who invest in crypto. And thinking about it, Dr. Werner & Partner are the new knights that watch from those walls.

For many Americans, Malta is associated with Humphrey Bogart and his 1941 film noir The Maltese Falcon. It is a story of crime and caper. The film has little to do with Malta – it’s pure Hollywood instead. The opening credits, however, have this to say:

In 1539 the Knight Templars [sic] of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels—but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day …

The new knights – Jörg and Phillip – have a new Falcon, crypto-currency, and that is one that is definitely flying high. And with Malta’s genius for defensive structures there appears no risk that this “Golden Falcon” is going to be stolen anytime soon – that is one mystery that is surely now solved.