The brand new licensing program, scheduled to take off in June, will prohibit retail merchants in Hong Kong to “highly-liquid” digital belongings, in keeping with the brand new CEO of Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Fee (SFC), Julia Leung Fung-yee.
On the current Asia Monetary Discussion board, Leung pointed out that many digital asset platforms have 1000’s of merchandise. Nevertheless, the SFC government highlighted that they aren’t planning to “permit retail traders to commerce in all of them.” As an alternative, the SFC will arrange standards that permit retail merchants to solely commerce main digital belongings.
Whereas the SFC government didn’t present extra particulars as to which belongings will likely be out there for buying and selling, Leung talked about that these will likely be belongings with “deep liquidity.” When requested about Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH), the SFC government didn’t reply, however reiterated that “extremely liquid” belongings will likely be allowed.
Regardless of the constraints that will likely be positioned on retail traders, Leung highlighted that they’re shifting to place Hong Kong as a digital asset hub. “We intention to have a correct regulatory framework to safeguard the curiosity of all traders and to reinforce Hong Kong as a digital asset hub,” she stated.
The CEO additionally famous that correct regulation might stop points, such because the collapse of the FTX trade, from occurring in Hong Kong.
In a current occasion, Hong Kong’s monetary secretary Paul Chan stated that many crypto corporations are requesting to arrange store in Hong Kong. The official highlighted that the federal government is doing its greatest to offer acceptable supervision to the crypto area and understand the potential of Web3 know-how.
Associated: Hong Kong brokers line up for SFC approval forward of recent digital asset buying and selling laws
Digital belongings have just lately been a sizzling matter within the particular administrative area. On Jan. 5, a Hong Kong official floated the thought of turning the Hong Kong digital greenback right into a stablecoin. Wu Jiezhuang, a legislative council member, believes this might tackle dangers linked to digital belongings in Web3.