Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.
Crypto exchanges that wish to do business in Hong Kong must apply for a license with the Securities and Futures Commission’s virtual asset trading platform regime by February 29.
As of the deadline date, 22 crypto exchanges currently have pending VATP applications with the SFC, including OKX, Bybit, Huobi HK, Gate. HK and the Binance-affiliated HKVAX.
“All VATP applicants on this list are NOT licensed or regulated by the SFC, and may NOT be in compliance with the SFC’s requirements,” the regulator states in an update on its website. “The purpose of this list is to enable any member of the public to ascertain whether a virtual asset trading platform has made untrue or misleading misrepresentations regarding its license application status with the SFC.”
Exchanges that have not filed a VATP application must exit the Hong Kong market by May 31. Since the city opened doors for retail crypto trading in June 2023, four exchanges have had their applications withdrawn or returned. Likewise, exchanges with VATP applications rejected by the SFC must also leave the city within three months. Currently, the only SFC-approved exchanges in Hong Kong are OSL and HashKey.
Cointelegraph reported in 2023 that Web3 firms are spending as much as $25 million on the necessary infrastructure and regulatory compliance for a Hong Kong VATP license. In addition to separation of funds requirements, exchange applicants must provide at least 50% insurance for customers’ assets and undergo regular audits of their financial statements.
Despite regulatory requirements, however, unlicensed exchanges remain a problem in Hong Kong. In 2023, JPEX and Hounax — two of the largest crypto exchanges in Hong Kong — collapsed after allegations of Ponzi scheme operations surfaced. An estimated $180 million of investors’ money was lost in the JPEX scandal, while 145 victims lost a combined $18.9 million in the Hounax scam. Although authorities have frozen some of the funds linked to JPEX and Hounax, most investors’ money remains lost.
On February 26, yet another Hong Kong crypto exchange, BitForex, came under fire after halting user redemptions and withdrawing $56 million from its hot wallets the day prior. The exchange has also stopped responding to user inquiries, and an investigation is ongoing.
Crypto exchanges of Asia-Pacific origin continue their expansion efforts amid the ongoing bull market.
On February 27, crypto exchange OKX announced that it had launched OKX Turkey with fiat on-ramp onboarding to the Turkish lira, alongside direct bank deposits and withdrawals for Turkish users.
“We are excited to offer Turkish users a powerful platform to trade major cryptocurrency pairs, including USTD/TRY, BTC/TRY and ETH/TRY, and provide users with advanced crypto features,” the exchange said in a statement. “With a crypto adoption rate close to 50%, Türkiye represents a very dynamic and promising market for the industry as it continues to develop,” added Hong Fang, president of OKX.
Meanwhile, crypto exchange Bitget reported a 540% increase in trading volume among its Southeast Asian users in Q4 2023.
“Total trading volume exceeding US$3.14 trillion in 2023,” the exchange wrote. “Notably, spot trading volume surged to US$81.6 billion, marking an impressive 94% increase despite market turbulence.” In September 2023, the exchange unveiled a $100 million Web3 fund dedicated to accelerating projects and protocols based in Asia.
After a tumulous year, crypto exchange HTX (formerly Huobi Global) is back in action with a pending expansion to Hong Kong, as per its VATP filing on February 26.
The day before, Sun.io, the largest DeFi platform in the Tron ecosystem, announced a strategic partnership with the HTX DAO to add $100 million to its total value locked for liquidity.
“It is estimated that through this partnership, HTX DAO will contribute 50% of its quarterly liquidity donations received to the HTX-TRX Liquidity Pool (LP), with a minimum of 80% allocated to SUN.io,” the platform wrote.
Hong Kong authorities will allocate 3 billion Hong Kong dollars ($383 million) for its Cyberport business park initiative in the next three years, with a keen focus on AI.
“Cyberport is expediting the establishment of an AI Supercomputing Centre to meet the demand of research institutes and the industry for computing power,” officials stated in a February 29 budget announcement.
“By early 2026 at the soonest, the computing power of the supercomputing facility is expected to reach 3,000 petaFLOPS. The scale of such power is equivalent to the capacity of processing nearly 10 billion images in one hour.”
Launched in 2023, Cyberport is a Hong Kong government-sponsored initiative to encourage the relocation of Web3 and AI firms to the city, as well as for existing small and medium-sized businesses in Hong Kong to implement digital solutions. The program attracted over 150 enterprises to relocate to the city shortly after its launch.
China’s digital yuan central bank digital currency will include a novel multichain bridge in 2023.
According to local news reports on February 28, the tool — dubbed mBridge — will allow the digital yuan to be swapped for other CBDCs in cross-border trade between China, Hong Kong and foreign countries. In addition, Paul Chan Mo-Po, the financial secretary of Hong Kong, said that local residents will be able to expand their use of China’s digital yuan wallets for tasks such as shopping and for tourism expenses within China.
In December 2023, China reached a $400 million deal with the United Arab Emirates to allow the exchange of each country’s CBDC during bilateral trade. In July 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping specifically addressed the need for countries friendly with China to expand local currency settlements for mutual trade, stating:
“The Chinese side proposes to expand the share of local currency settlements of SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization] countries, expand sovereign digital currency cooperation, and promote the establishment of SCO development banks.”