On February 12th, Dr. Xiao Feng, Chairman and CEO of HashKey (3887.HK), delivered an industry-wide interpretation of the recent notice (Document No. 42) issued by eight ministries including the People's Bank of China regarding new regulations on cryptocurrencies at the University of Hong Kong. He pointed out that Hong Kong has the opportunity to leverage its institutional advantages as a special administrative region and, through the key track of RWA (Real-Time Weapon) cryptocurrency, surpass London to become the world's second-largest financial center.
He pointed out that, from the perspective of the issuance process, the mainland relies on intermediaries such as accountants and lawyers, focusing on completing compliance filings; while in Hong Kong, issuance and trading plans developed by overseas licensed intermediaries must be submitted, and acceptance or trading permission from the trading venue must be obtained. These arrangements typically require the participation of institutions holding Type 1 licenses or VASP licenses to connect underwriters with trading venues. This means that Hong Kong's institutional advantage lies in its ability to integrate the design and execution of products from custody, issuance, underwriting to trading and subsequent compliance operations, forming a complete market closed loop.
In terms of issuance structure, Hong Kong RWAs currently mostly adopt an offshore private placement model, with products mainly divided into two categories: "income right type" and "ownership type". Income right type RWAs are typically issued privately and traded over-the-counter (OTC), and can be issued and traded by licensed institutions with Type 1 licenses and familiarity with OTC market rules. Ownership type products, if involving stock tokenization, require institutional space to further move towards public offerings and open market trading. Regardless of the structure adopted, the core prerequisite remains licensing compliance and trading venue approval. Compared to other jurisdictions, Hong Kong's advantage lies in its clear licensing system and mature market infrastructure, which can simultaneously support private placements, underwriting, and trading, achieving a closed-loop operation from product issuance to circulation. Overall, the market is currently dominated by institutional investors, but Hong Kong has reserved institutional interfaces for broader market participation in the future.
Regarding the trading ecosystem, he pointed out that RWA currently primarily uses peer-to-peer over-the-counter trading, rather than continuous auction matching on exchanges. Blockchain technology has a natural advantage in peer-to-peer trading scenarios, improving settlement efficiency, reducing counterparty risk, and enhancing transaction transparency. Hong Kong's unique advantage lies in its institutional advantages, which provide a practical foundation for the compliant integration of on-chain peer-to-peer trading models. In the future, this is expected to reshape RWA's trading infrastructure.
He also pointed out that with US dollar interest rates remaining high, market expectations for RWA product returns have significantly increased, posing a real challenge to the cross-border issuance of high-quality assets. In the future, if RWA can be combined with DeFi, margin trading, and other mechanisms under compliant conditions, it will open up greater room for innovation. However, the tokenization of equity assets still faces restrictions related to securities regulations, requiring regulators to further clarify or optimize the institutional arrangements.
Xiao Feng stated that in 2008, Time magazine summarized the important positions of New York, London, and Hong Kong in the global financial system as "New York, London, and Hong Kong." Now, the RWA is a key track for Hong Kong to achieve "leapfrog development," and it needs to seize the window of opportunity to transform "New York, London, and Hong Kong" into "New York, Hong Kong, and London," surpassing London to become the world's second largest international financial center.
