Hong Kong is all set to relax its strict crypto regulation with a plan to allow retail cryptocurrency trading. According to the report, a mandatory licensing regime for crypto platforms that enables retail crypto trading is set to be enforced in March 2023.
It said that Hong Kong is planning to legalize retail trading for cryptocurrency starting in March after years of skepticism, contrasting with ban in mainland China’s.
Moreover, regulators are also planning to allow retail exchanges to list prominent cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). The listing rules will likely include criteria such as the token’s inclusion, market value, liquidity in third-party crypto indexes.
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Executive director of crypto firm BC Technology Group, Gary Tiu, commented that introducing mandatory licensing in Hong Kong is one of the essential things regulators must do. They cannot forever effectively close the needs of retail investors, he added.
Executive president of Hashkey, digital asset financial services group, Michel Lee, explained that Hong Kong has been toiling to create an all-encompassing crypto regime, citing tokenized bonds and stocks as a potentially more critical segment in the future. “Just trading digital assets on their own is not the goal. The goal is to grow the ecosystem,” he said.
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), Hong Kong’s top financial regulator, introduceD a voluntary licensing regime in the year 2018. It limited crypto trading platforms to clients with portfolios of minimum HK$8 million ($1 million). However, the strict regulation turned away several crypto businesses, and only two firms, i.e., BC Technology Group and Hashkey, were approved.
