Recent advancements in Hong Kong’s crypto space could provide a potential boost to the East Asian region, which has been largely affected by a China-wide ban on crypto trading activities since 2019. According to a report from Chainalysis, East Asia’s share of crypto transaction value dropped from around 30% in 2019 to less than 10% by the second quarter of 2022.Despite its much smaller population, Hong Kong is already an “extremely active crypto market” by raw transaction volume, receiving an estimated $64 billion in crypto between July 2022 and June 2023. Merton Lam of CryptoHK, an over-the-counter digital asset trading center in Hong Kong, said that cryptocurrencies are becoming a staple in the investment portfolios of many banks, private equity firms and high-net-worth individuals in the region. Chinese state-owned businesses have also launched cryptocurrency-focused investment funds.Dave Chapman of digital asset platform OSL Digital Securities said that while digital assets “are not going away” in East Asia, it’s still too early to say whether Hong Kong’s crypto ambitions mean China has fully embraced the cryptocurrency space. Matrixport’s Head of Research and Strategy Markus Thielen said Hong Kong will serve as a “testing ground” for broader cryptocurrency adoption in China. Thielen added that Hong Kong is making a big play in one particular area which other states haven’t managed to capitalize on: “attracting the crypto asset management industry which has so far been a missing piece of the puzzle.”

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Information	Details
Geography	Asia
Countries	🇨🇳 🇭🇰
Sentiment	neutral
Relevance Score	8
People	Dave Chapman, Merton Lam, Markus Thielen
Companies	Matrixport, DAOs, Chainalysis, OSL Digital Securities, CryptoHK
Currencies	Hong Kong Dollar, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Chinese Yuan
Securities	None