Not all that glitters is gold. A few days ago there was yet another sparkling announcement on the part of San Marino Innovation, from the impeccable Sergio Mottola, always engaged in the launch of futuristic projects and collaborations aimed at the development of our country.
But time is running out, and the time has come to take stock of the results.
Let’s take a small step back. San Marino Innovation, the 100% state-owned “heir” of the Techno Science Park, is pursuing an ambitious goal: to make our country an international destination for digital businesses (according to rumors, if even only one of the San Marino Innovation projects actually were to materialize, the banks’ problems would be little more than a stomachache, compared to the colossal wealth that would come from these deals).
Unfortunately, not everyone is especially happy with their experience with Mottola as president of San Marino Innovation. It is a good bet, for example, that the Estonian Polybius group is not happy at all.
Giornalesm.com has come into possession of information and conducted an investigation of the Blockchain project, born from the collaboration between San Marino and the Estonian company, known for having launched the homonymous cryptocurrency a few years ago.
As it happened, Mottola unilaterally decided to end a contract with the multinational Polybius, which for its part appears solely “responsible” for having put San Marino Innovation and our Republic in a technically capable position to produce a law governing blockchains — among the first worldwide.
All without asking our state for a single euro.
But there’s more. Polybius evidently has paid several tens of thousands of euros for project-related costs to San Marino Innovation, thus significantly reducing the need for the State to finance the project – an especially relevant point in these lean times.
True, the Sammarinese are not used to seeing things like that; for heaven’s sake, normally the State prefers to assist the careers of external consultants, paying them handsome sums even (or perhaps especially) if they are neophytes in their purported fields of expertise. In this case, the opposite has happened: a digital multinational decided to believe in our country and is willing to finance a project, so the most logical thing that San Marino can do is send it packing!
One out, another one in: let’s hope that things go better for VeChain, which apparently has also been working on the blockchain with San Marino Innovation for a year now, as we recently learned from the bombastic announcements of Mottola and Co. For all we know, Polybius is wondering if this is the way business is usually conducted in San Marino.
It’s hard to see this as an example of putting one’s best foot forward; indeed, perhaps it is to be feared that San Marino’s reputation may be affected internationally because of the treatment given to important foreign groups, and one hopes that Polybius are not taking all this too badly.
To be continued….
