Hong Kong wants to take more proactive steps to become an international hub for virtual assets by launching various legal initiatives related to emerging technologies in the crypto industry.

The city and a special administrative region of China seem to want to see the regulation of cryptocurrencies differently from China.

Elizabeth Wong, head of the Fintech unit of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), stated that Hong Kong is considering introducing its own bill to regulate cryptocurrencies in its own free way from China.

Wong added during a panel hosted by InvestHK, the South China Morning Post report on Oct. 17 that SFC’s initiatives include allowing retail investors to “invest directly in virtual assets.”

According to Wong, this initiative would mark a significant change from the SFC’s stance on cryptocurrencies over the past four years, which limits cryptocurrency trading on centralized exchanges to professional investors, defined as individuals with a portfolio of at least HK$8 million. (US$1 million). ).

Furthermore, Wong expressed his opinion on how the cryptocurrency industry has changed in the last four years to be more compatible and suggested that it is time for Hong Kong to take a new stance on cryptocurrencies.

“We think this may be a good time to think carefully about whether we will continue with this professional investor-only requirement,” Wong said.

Additionally, the SFC official has alluded to some other legal initiatives targeting the development of the crypto ecosystem in Hong Kong, including a policy put in place in January to allow service providers to sell certain derivatives related to cryptocurrencies.

Wong also noted that SFC has been considering whether to allow retail investors to invest in crypto-related exchange-traded funds.

Following Wong’s discussions, on October 21, an official statement by the government of the Hong Kong special administrative region stated that the local government had submitted a bill to propose the establishment of a regulatory regime for virtual asset service providers.

The statement added that Hong Kong would also support emerging technologies such as Web3 and Metaverse. And furthermore, Hong Kong will become “an international hub for virtual assets.”

In particular, reports indicate that Hong Kong is one of the cities that is doing well when it comes to cryptocurrency adoption. In July, block chain.New reported that Hong Kong had a crypto-ready score of 8.6/10 based on the city’s attractiveness to investors due to not taxing cryptocurrency capital gains. Furthermore, Hong Kong is also known to have the densest area in terms of the number of crypto ATMs.

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