‘Big Ass No’: Hong Kong Trading Not a Sign China Is Warming Up to Crypto

Hong Kong final week greenlit digital asset buying and selling for retail buyers in a transfer that seems to be an try to rebrand town as a crypto hub.

Does this now imply that China—a rustic infamous for cracking down on crypto—has now modified course and reopened as much as the world of Web3 and Bitcoin? 

“Bullshit,” in keeping with one skilled who spoke to Decrypt. 

Sean Lee, Co-Founding father of Odsy Community and a senior advisor on the Crypto Council for Innovation, instructed Decrypt that regardless of being a particular administrative area of China, the world’s second largest economic system wouldn’t be opening as much as crypto simply but. 

“Like all people is saying China’s warming as much as crypto,”Lee mentioned. “Like that’s bullshit. That’s a giant ass no.” He added that Beijing’s current native authorities Web3 whitepaper additionally wasn’t essentially a transfer in the direction of a crypto-friendly China both. 

Hong Kong was a giant crypto hub years again, with main digital asset exchanges corresponding to Binance, Bitfinex and FTX basing their operations there. However that modified following China’s strict COVID-19 lockdowns and regulatory crackdowns—which scared many crypto startups away. 

Now, Hong Kong is permitting retail buyers to commerce crypto beneath a brand new set of strict guidelines which asks crypto corporations to conform and register with the Securities and Futures Fee (SFC).

This led some—together with Huobi advisor and crypto mogul Justin Solar—to say that China can be opening as much as digital belongings too because it controls Hong Kong. 

However China has a number of the world’s strictest crypto guidelines—its authorities banned digital asset buying and selling and mining again in 2021. 

Lee did add this could be a testing floor for China. 

“[Hong Kong’s new policy] doesn’t imply China now will get entry to or is opening as much as crypto. Now what it does imply is that Hong Kong is a regulatory sandbox for China.”

Lee added that Hong Kong’s transfer was good for town and the continent as an entire in attracting crypto funding. He added that the “aim is rarely retail per se,” however fairly the perfect state of affairs is for establishments to become involved—and if massive gamers then create merchandise that may be offered to retail buyers, that “adjustments the sport.”