Hong Kong Determined to Compete as Global Virtual Asset Center

Author: Zhou Zhou

Hong Kong has made up its mind to compete with Singapore, London, New York and other cities for the status of global encrypted financial center and virtual asset center.

On October 16, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Chen Maobo published an article "Innovation and Technology Development in Hong Kong", and pointed out that it is necessary to promote Hong Kong's development into an international virtual asset center. Chen Maobo said: "The policy declaration will clearly express the government's position, and demonstrate to the global industry our vision to promote Hong Kong's development into an international virtual asset center, as well as our commitment and determination to explore financial innovation with the global asset industry."

This also means that Hong Kong will further promote the development of NFT (abbreviation for Non-Fungible Tokens, that is, non-fungible tokens), Web3 and cryptocurrency markets, all of which are based on financial innovation and network innovation based on blockchain technology. innovation.

Web3 is an Internet ecosystem based on blockchain technology. It is committed to decentralizing or partially decentralizing the Internet, so that users can have more opportunities to control their own data, assets and digital identities. This new form of digital economy has attracted a lot of investment. According to the latest data from McKinsey, in the first half of 2022, venture capital investment in Web3 exceeded 18 billion US dollars, and the total venture capital investment in 2021 was 32.4 billion US dollars.

Since the beginning of this year, financial centers in many countries and regions around the world have announced that they will become virtual asset centers and encrypted financial centers, and attract entrepreneurs and companies in this field.

At the Hong Kong Financial Technology Conference at the end of October, some innovations related to web3 will be displayed. Chen Maobo revealed that this year’s Hong Kong Financial Technology Week will add ideas such as Web3 and Metaverse, including non-homogeneous tokens (NFT) Tokens of the Proof of Attendance Agreement will be distributed to participants in a limited edition form. Token holders will be able to create their own virtual avatars through 3D scanning at that time, providing visitors with a new experience. In the future, they can also use the tokens to give priority to other industry activities. This form of issuing NFT participation certificates to participants has become a trend. This certificate often has no entity and is just a network certificate. However, because it is made into an NFT, it has the value of collection and trading. .

Within Asia, cities (countries) that hope to become global encrypted financial centers and virtual asset centers include but are not limited to Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok, etc.

In May 2022, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated that the arrival of the Web3 era may lead (Japan) economic growth. He mentioned that the integration of new digital services such as Metaverse and NFT will bring economic growth to Japan. "As we move into the Web3 era, I feel strongly that we have to push this environment firmly from a political standpoint."

Yu Ito, a Tokyo city councilor in Japan, has disclosed plans to transform Tokyo into an encrypted financial center, claiming that embracing encrypted assets can help Tokyo be on par with London and Hong Kong.

Singapore is often compared with Hong Kong because of its similarity in population, urban area, and financial policies. At the end of September, the "TOKEN 2049" encryption conference in Singapore had just ended, attracting 7000+ participants, 2000+ companies and 250+ sponsors from all over the world, and hundreds of events were held.

According to the "2022 Global Blockchain Talent Report - Web 3.0 Direction" released by the data asset trading website OKX and the third-party recruitment platform LinkedIn, as of June 2022, the United States, India, China, the United Kingdom, and Singapore are the top 5 global blockchain players. Blockchain talent country. Among them, Singapore's talent growth rate is relatively high.

Outside of Asia, in April 2022, Rishi Sunak, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, tweeted: "We are working hard to make the UK a global center for encrypted assets." Global Encrypted Asset Technology Center” article, announcing a partnership with the Royal Mint to develop NFT. In the United States, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez proposed to build Miami into the new Silicon Valley of Web3; New York Mayor Adams said that New York is the center of the world and hopes that it will become an innovation center for cryptocurrencies and other finance.

Fintech is the advantage of Hong Kong, China. So far, there are more than 600 fintech companies in Hong Kong, China, whose business covers mobile payment, cross-border wealth management, virtual asset transactions, etc., and has a relatively strong accumulation of strength in the field of fintech. Since the beginning of this year, many officials of the Hong Kong government have continued to speak out, seeking to develop encrypted finance and digital asset industries.

In August 2022, former Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, John Tsang, said that the virtual economy is very important to Hong Kong, encouraging the younger generation to actively participate in and adopt technology through Web3; Set up a cross-border digital currency trading center; in the same month, Chen Haolian, deputy director of the Hong Kong Treasury Bureau, pointed out that the issuance of security tokens has already been issued in Hong Kong. He emphasized that the government is committed to supporting the steady development of financial technology, including the issuance of security tokens, in Hong Kong.

Of course, there are still many challenges in the development of Web3 in Hong Kong, China. In terms of policy openness, it is not as good as Singapore and South Korea; in terms of technical talent pool, it is not as good as Shenzhen, Beijing and other first-tier cities in the mainland; in terms of the number of Web3 companies, it is far less than the United States New York and Silicon Valley. How to differentiate and compete with other global financial centers in the field of encrypted finance and find the most suitable path for development has become a question that the financial industry in Hong Kong, China, is thinking about.