Has the spring of Hong Kong’s crypto market really arrived?

Recently, favorable policies have been continuously introduced in Hong Kong, and the Web3 craze has once again been ignited in Hong Kong.

Last week, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission launched a consultation on the proposed regulations applicable to operators of virtual asset trading platforms. The rumor that "Hong Kong will open crypto trading to all citizens in June this year" also sparked heated discussions on social media. For a time, related concept coins skyrocketed. Judging from the increase in the past 7 days, as of press time, CFX ( Conflux ) has increased by more than 400%, COCOS (Coscos-BCX) and KEY ( SelfKey ) have both increased by more than 200%, ACH ( Alchemy Pay ) has increased by more than 140%, FIL ( Filecoin ) has increased by more than 70%, and HIGH ( Highstreet ) has increased by more than 44%.

On February 22, when delivering the 2023-2024 SAR government budget, Hong Kong SAR Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po stated that 50 million yuan will be allocated to accelerate the development of the Web3 ecosystem, and a virtual asset development task force will be established to submit recommendations to the government on the sustainable and responsible development of the industry.

Hong Kong has long been one of Asia's economic centers, with rich resources in finance, trade, logistics and other industries. In this context, blockchain technology is seen as a key technology that can enhance Hong Kong's competitiveness, and the Hong Kong government is aware of this. As early as 2017, the Hong Kong government established a special blockchain working group to start research and application of blockchain technology. More and more blockchain start-ups have landed in Hong Kong, and at the same time, a number of internationally renowned blockchain companies have settled in Hong Kong. The arrival of these companies has brought more resources and talents to Hong Kong's blockchain ecosystem.

More and more initiatives hint at Hong Kong’s determination to build Asia’s and even the world’s Web3 center. Regarding the Hong Kong government’s embrace of encryption, Bittui has compiled the views of some industry bigwigs.

Ginkgo Labs co-founder (@晶晶_火星) said that the Hong Kong web3 and blockchain market is the leader in the transition from bull market to bear market. Singapore and Silicon Valley have been hurt by the wild growth of FTX. Hong Kong has been protected by compliance and other policies, avoiding the damage caused by the bankruptcy of FTX. And this time the Chinese government also hopes that Hong Kong can enter the web3 field as a "bridgehead vanguard". Therefore, as long as trillions of traditional asset management intervenes, it will bring a "bull market" to Hong Kong. But the real implementation needs to wait until the second half of this year. And as Chinese blockchain OGs in Singapore, Silicon Valley and Dubai move their headquarters to Hong Kong, this is a new opportunity for Hong Kong. And it will be a huge opportunity for the layout of the future Chinese market.

(@lige5888) tweeted that the Hong Kong Web3 plan has begun. It feels like Hong Kong has been divided into two stages in recent years. From 2017 to 2020, the focus was on regulation. From 2021 to 2022, especially in 2022, after the Hong Kong government replaced its new leadership, Hong Kong's vision has clearly shifted and it has begun to reorganize its policies, preparing to take a big step to compete with Singapore and New York for the position of a global #Crypto financial center.

JDI Chairman Yiming Wang (@WANG9599) also expressed his views on the Hong Kong government's investment policy. He said that before this policy, Hong Kong had already nurtured several cryptocurrency exchanges, including the earliest bitfinex , as well as ftx and crypto.com, which started in Hong Kong. The support of this policy will attract more entrepreneurs to Hong Kong, and the future of Hong Kong's web3 is bright.

Some people hold a negative attitude towards the hot development of Web3 in Hong Kong. Cryptocurrency celebrity @BitRunX wrote that his personal opinion on Hong Kong's web3 is: I believe the Hong Kong government is trying to regain its status as an international financial center that it has just lost; Hong Kong's biggest problem now is the lack of confidence in the rule of law, and foreign capital is withdrawing; the mainland defines crypto as illegal, and if there are disputes in the future, the mainland will definitely ask Hong Kong to cooperate and currently all rights of interpretation in Hong Kong belong to the mainland.

However, it is worth noting that the definition of the "Hong Kong concept" in the current favorable policies for Hong Kong is not clear, and the leading logic of many so-called "Hong Kong concept" projects is also unclear. Therefore, crypto investors need to be wary of Ponzi schemes.