Bitcoin in Hong Kong

The 2014 Internet Finance Innovation CEO Summit and International Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Summit (IFICS), co-organized by UBM China and Hong Kong Cyberport, was successfully held on November 28 and 29, 2014.

As the core media partner of the conference, 8btc.com reported the conference in all aspects and conducted exclusive interviews with well-known industry figures such as Roger Ver (Bitcoin Jesus), Samuel Bourque (co-founder of the Hong Kong Bitcoin Association), and Jihan Wu (CEO of Bitmain).

This article is compiled based on a video of a Babbitt News reporter's exclusive interview with Samuel Bourque (his partner Henry Yu was also interviewed).

Samuel Bourque was born in Canada and holds degrees in physics and computer science. From 2007 to 2012, he worked as a project manager at Morgan Stanley, leading developers to develop compliance and security systems. Since then, he has focused on finance and law. Currently, he is pursuing a doctorate in law in Hong Kong. At the same time, as the founder of the Hong Kong Bitcoin Association, he wrote Hong Kong's first white paper on Bitcoin-related legal issues, "The Impact of Bitcoin on the Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region". His recent focus is on Smart Contracts, and he will write a new white paper "Smart Contracts from a Lawyer's Perspective".

Samuel first came into contact with Bitcoin when he was a project manager at Morgan Stanley. At first, he thought that the concept of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency was quite stupid and no one would want to get involved. A few months later, someone asked him to study Bitcoin from a legal perspective. It was only at this time that he studied the Bitcoin Genesis Paper and other related materials, and then he fell in love with Bitcoin and began to devote a lot of energy to studying it.

He moved to Hong Kong to work last year and joined the Hong Kong Bitcoin Association as one of the founding members. He said that the main reason he founded the Hong Kong Bitcoin Association was that there was no such organization in Hong Kong at that time that could promote Bitcoin in Hong Kong and help the public clarify the myths about Bitcoin. There was also a lack of an association to organize Bitcoin enthusiasts in Hong Kong to communicate with each other.

He introduced:

"The general public in Hong Kong should have heard of the word Bitcoin, but not many people use it. Bitcoin enthusiasts are still a niche group in Hong Kong, but since last year, a large number of Bitcoin-related startups have emerged."

At the same time, he and Henry expected that

“There are probably less than 1,000 people working in the bitcoin industry in Hong Kong. But the number of people who have held bitcoin is probably around 200,000.”

He expects:

“Starting next year, Hong Kong people will gradually start using Bitcoin.”

According to Samuel, English media in Hong Kong, including world-class media such as the BBC, have reported on Bitcoin-related events many times. Although most of them are negative news, such as the bankruptcy of Mt.Gox. At the same time, Henry believes that when the price of Bitcoin soared in November last year, it attracted the attention of many Hong Kong people. Even TVB TV series indirectly mentioned Bitcoin (referred to as C-Coin). But then the price went down, and people gradually forgot about Bitcoin.

In Hong Kong, Bitcoin is often compared to the Octopus card (a popular rechargeable consumption card in Hong Kong). Because the Octopus card has a deep cooperation with the MTR (Hong Kong's railway system), almost everyone is (forced to) hold an Octopus card. At the same time, almost all merchants support the use of Octopus cards for payment. As of now, people do not seem to have much motivation (nor convenience) to use Bitcoin. This phenomenon is not only in Hong Kong, but also in the world.

Because of this, they turned their attention to the application of Bitcoin blockchain, namely smart contracts.

The Hong Kong authorities currently do not have a clear classification of Bitcoin, nor have they taken many proactive actions, but are just continuing to observe the dynamics of Bitcoin. If there is no big scandal like the Mt.Gox incident in Hong Kong, he believes that the authorities will not regulate Bitcoin in the near future. At the same time, Sam is shocked by the BitLicence of the New York authorities. If the scope of the BitLicence is too broad, it will force a large number of Bitcoin startups to stop providing services to New York citizens.

Of course, from a technical point of view, unless the entire Internet is shut down, there is no way to ban the Bitcoin network. At the same time, he believes that it is very unlikely that the Hong Kong government will ban Bitcoin.

Finally, he briefly introduced the concept of smart contracts.

“Simply put, smart contracts are what was previously written on paper in human language, expressed in the form of software code. All rights and responsibilities, as well as related execution steps, are reflected through software. Compared with paper contracts, smart contracts can accomplish more things.”

He gave an example that smart contracts can automatically check the logistics status. If the logistics status query result shows that the buyer has received the goods, the seller will automatically receive the amount of Bitcoin (or other competing currencies) agreed on in the smart contract. This will greatly reduce the trust cost of people's transactions. At the same time, smart contracts will promote the development of P2P business, such as private lending.

So, they are developing a smart contract management system through which people can easily draft smart contracts and implement the execution of smart contracts.