FSTB (Financial Services & The Treasury Of Hong Kong) Secretary Christopher Hui first learned about crypto from friends who ran investment funds and invested in digital assets. Fast forward to today, he now focuses his attention on developing viable policies for the growing sector. Hong Kong is currently testing an NFT offering, one of several pilots being run by the aforementioned regulator, including tokenizing green bonds and a CDBC known as the e-HKD. In Hong Kong, crypto is currently regulated by several agencies. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is investigating stablecoins, while the Securities and Futures Commission is in charge of enforcement. The FSTB establishes a more macro-level approach to regulation. Going forward, the approach appears to be to incorporate crypto into financial regulation and hopefully provide an opening of areas for discussion, like enabling crypto investment under the incoming regulatory framework, which was previously ruled out. The attempt by Hong Kong to re-establish itself as a crypto hub comes after a year of market turmoil that witnessed the Terra and FTX crashes, VC funds be liquidated, and jurisdictions such as Singapore tighten crypto regulation.
