Hong Kong's financial secretary predicts breakthrough growth in the digital realm with Web3

In a blog post, Chan highlights blockchain as a technology that can be integrated in virtually any industry for overall advancement

By Shashank Bhardwaj

Published: Aug 28, 2023 07:14:50 PM IST

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Hong Kong, one of the Chinese special administrative regions, is one of the governments taking a proactive role in positively regulating their crypto sector- a move greatly applauded by crypto enthusiasts around the world. So far, the Hong Kong administration has established a specific task force for ethically promoting web3 development in the region; the task force is said to contain 11 key government officials and 15 web3 industry participants. Further, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong has implemented a crypto licensing regime to protect all market participants.

As part of the latest web3 developments in Hong Kong, now the financial secretary Paul Chan Mo-po emphasises his support for blockchains. Notably, he calls it the next wave of immense growth for the host of emerging digital technologies.

This statement comes from an August 27 blog post from Chan. He names blockchain the core technology of web3, with its features of “disintermediation, security, transparency, immutability and low cost”. Further, speaking of blockhain’s use cases, he states, “... [blockchains] can be applied in many fields such as finance, commerce, trade, supply chain management, and even daily life.”

Chan goes on to highlight the NFT, GameFi, P2E (Play-to-Earn) gaming, and immersive entertainment sectors as the ones to lead digital entertainment in the upcoming times.

The blog post came right in the heels of Chan’s attendance in the Digital Entertainment Leaders Forum, which was a three-day, blockchain-centred event hosted in Cyberport in Hong Kong.

In relevant news, Chan underscored his allocation of an additional $50 million from this fiscal year’s budget to Cyberport, which is a business park in Hong Kong. This funding is meant to magnify the development of a web3 ecosystem in the region.

Interestingly, Cyberport already has more than 180 web3-based tech companies, which include startups, exchanges, and more. Further, about 20 percent of these companies are international, and their expansion to Hong Kong adds to the strategic success of the region’s positive crypto regulatory measures.

As Hong Kong has already realised, giving crypto a legal status is important in heralding the growth of web3 in any region, as web3, blockchain, and crypto are majorly interconnected technologies. The success of Hong Kong is sure to initiate a replication of the area’s crypto measures across administrative bodies in the world.

The writer is the founder at yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash