Hong Kong's blockchain plans
To support Web3 development, Hong Kong is holding a two-day digital economy summit starting this Thursday.
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The backstory: We've previously talked about Hong Kong's ambition to be a hub for digital assets and Web3 companies. Now, if you're not familiar with Web3, think of it as the newer, decentralized version of the internet powered by blockchain and other similar tech. Well, despite the crypto industry's challenges, like some epic exchange and coin collapses over the past year, the city's still determined to make it happen.
More recently: In February, Hong Kong's finance chief Paul Chan put aside HK$50 million (around US$6.4 million) to speed up Web3 development by organizing international conferences and youth workshops.
The development: On Sunday, Chan said he's optimistic about the potential of innovative technologies like blockchain. After the recent "burst bubble," he thinks now is the perfect time for skilled professionals to explore new and groundbreaking ideas.
He also mentioned that the next stage of Web3 development is all about diving deeper into blockchain technology to find even more ways to use it. So, Chan said the government plans to introduce a licensing system for virtual asset service providers in June. The city's also looking into how to regulate stablecoins, basically cryptocurrencies pegged to the value of another currency or commodity.
To support Web3 development, Hong Kong is holding a two-day digital economy summit starting this Thursday with some pretty big industry giants like Alibaba, Baidu and Huawei.
Key comments:
"The recent instability of the virtual assets market and the collapse of some virtual asset exchanges have cast doubts on the future of Web3, but we believe this is the best time to promote development," wrote Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan on his weekly blog.
"I believe that Hong Kong will continue to have a certain degree of openness and flexibility," said tech investor Curt Shi to Bloomberg. "While our portfolio and fund will embrace Hong Kong and its policies, we will continue to have a presence in Australia, Singapore, as well as in Europe and the US."
"As long as it's still under the Party's control, there will be no U-turn on China's crypto policy," said He Yifan, founder and CEO of state-backed blockchain firm Red Date Technology. "It does no good to the real economy."
"The changing attitude of the Hong Kong SAR government towards crypto signals a nod from the Chinese central government granting pilot status to HK for some forward-looking experiments on how can crypto be best adopted and localized for the huge Chinese market at large," said Justin Sun, founder of Tronin, in January. "I'm very bullish on the outlook for crypto in the greater China region for the next decade."
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