Recap of the Thrilling Opening Day of the 2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival

2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival
The opening ceremony of the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival took place on April 6th in Hong Kong. Co-hosted by the Wanxiang Blockchain Lab and HashKey Group, and organized by W3ME, the event kicked off at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. Guests including Lu Weiding, Chairman of Wanxiang Group, Xiao Feng, Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain, Paul Chan, Deputy Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, Claudia Mo, Legislative Council Member of Hong Kong, and Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, delivered exciting speeches.


The morning session was the opening ceremony of the four-day conference. Lu Weiding, NPC Deputy, Vice Chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and CEO of Wanxiang Group, delivered the opening speech. He said, “In the past two years, Hong Kong has become one of the international centers for virtual assets, with global influence in the virtual asset industry. The 2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival has some new features. One is its global representation, with many major projects from Europe and the United States participating. Second, nearly half of the projects are in the field of blockchain applications.” Lu Weiding is full of expectations for the future of Hong Kong Web3, stating, “The 1995 moment of blockchain applications is approaching, and the next few years will be the best time for Hong Kong’s economic development.”


Paul Chan, Deputy Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, stated, “Hong Kong focuses mainly on two areas in the development of Web3. The first is the support for Hong Kong’s virtual asset trading platforms, and the second is the support for Web3 developers. The Hong Kong government is in the process of amending legislation to include virtual asset OTC transactions in regulatory oversight, and the proposed legislation is under development. In addition, Hong Kong will allow intermediaries to provide trading of virtual assets, futures, and ETFs that meet certain criteria. Looking ahead, we will continue to collaborate with more industry participants to bring more possibilities to Hong Kong and promote the development of the Web3 industry.”


Claudia Mo, Legislative Council Member of Hong Kong, delivered a keynote speech titled “Unleashing the Power of Web3 with Technology.” She stated, “Hong Kong will soon see Bitcoin spot ETF trading. We are currently in the era of ETH2, which includes competition between Optimistic and zkRollup. We will also see the impact of crypto on consumption, finance and investment, traditional economy, and central banks. There are now more financial professionals leading the industry, and financial institutions and experts are increasingly integrating with the government’s regulatory governance to jointly promote the growth and strength of crypto.” Regarding the progress of virtual assets in Hong Kong, Claudia Mo stated that the new Virtual Asset Trading Platform (VATP) regulatory framework has been implemented, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has launched a sandbox for stablecoin issuance. In the future, Hong Kong will conduct public consultations on legislative proposals for the regulation of virtual asset OTC (VAOTC) and introduce a personal regulatory framework for virtual asset custody service providers.


Stephen S. Y. Wong, Chief Public Mission Officer of Cyberport Hong Kong, also delivered a speech, introducing the progress made by Cyberport in the past year and its future plans. He stated, “The Cyberport Web3 community has grown from 80 members a year ago to over 220 now, doubling in just one year.” He also revealed that “Cyberport is accelerating the establishment of an AI supercomputing center, which is also the thriving center of the innovative technology industry in Hong Kong. This strategic project will inject new energy into the development of Web3 and unlock its potential.”


Cathie Wood, CEO and CIO of ARK Invest, and Deng Chao, Head of HashKey Singapore and CEO of HashKey Capital, engaged in a fireside chat. Cathie Wood stated, “While global developing countries’ currencies are depreciating, Bitcoin continues to rise. Every month, we have a brainstorming session on Bitcoin. Blockchain has great potential beyond just the prices of virtual assets. For example, blockchain and gaming will be empowered by AI. Gaming is an early application of AI, and we will see more AI + Web3 games in the future.” She also made a prediction about the price of Bitcoin, stating, “Our analysis from multiple perspectives shows that Bitcoin will reach $1.5 million by 2030. This price prediction comes from a survey about institutions, using downside ratios and volatility analysis. The previous price prediction for Bitcoin in 2030 was $600,000, but the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs will drive the price of Bitcoin to $1.5 million in 2030.” When talking about the Web3 industry in Hong Kong, Cathie Wood said, “Hong Kong is a global leader in crypto regulation and is worth studying for the United States.”


Dominic Williams, Founder and Chief Scientist of the DFINITY Foundation, delivered a keynote speech titled “Principled Reflections on AI as Smart Contracts.” He explored the operation of AI on the blockchain and stated, “Blockchain for AI and tokenization for AI are completely different issues from AI running on the blockchain.”


In his keynote speech “Latest Developments in Virtual Currency in Hong Kong,” Alex W. H. Chen, Deputy Director of the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau, stated, “Hong Kong will become the largest cross-border asset development center in Asia in the future, and Hong Kong-listed companies will be a significant investment target. Hong Kong will be a leader in the future financial technology field. Hong Kong’s virtual banking issuance is becoming increasingly mature and government-led, and it will continue to develop in a more open manner. Currently, new developments in the Web3 field in Hong Kong include the completion of the virtual asset issuance system.”


Steve Yun, Chairman of the TON Foundation, and John Hyman, Chief Investment Officer of Telegram, gave keynote speeches on “Cryptocurrency Transformation within the Telegram Ecosystem.” Steve Yun stated, “In the mass adoption of Web3, there are challenges such as complex user experience, lack of simple onboarding methods, lack of viral marketing, and lack of distribution channels. TON has partially addressed these issues by integrating a wallet, Mini Apps, a simple onboarding mechanism, and Telegram advertising within Telegram. There is a need for an onboarding layer between Web2 and Web3, which requires simple mechanisms (such as Click-to-Earn), viral social spreading, and gamification (such as Play-to-Earn, Learn-to-Earn, and Use-to-Earn). Viral applications combined with the Web3 economy can achieve mass adoption. The goal of the TON Foundation is to onboard 30% of Telegram users to Web3 by 2028.”


In the afternoon, at the main venue of the “Road to Building Hong Kong’s Digital Economy Center,” Jason Hung, COO of HashKey Group and CEO of HashKey Exchange, stated, “In the past year, there has been a shift in global crypto compliance, and non-compliant exchanges have been thoroughly cleaned up. The regulatory direction of financial centers around the world has become increasingly clear. The three driving forces behind crypto compliance are exchanges, spot ETFs, and stablecoins. Hong Kong has taken the lead in licensing compliant exchanges, the United States has approved Bitcoin spot ETFs, and the Hong Kong government has opened applications for Bitcoin spot ETFs. Hong Kong has also launched a stablecoin sandbox.” Jason Hung believes that the market outlook includes the market pressure brought by the clearance of non-compliant risks, USD interest rate cuts, Bitcoin halving, Asian capital entering the market due to the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs in Hong Kong, Ethereum spot ETFs in the United States and Hong Kong, and the birth of popular DApps driving an application revolution.


Anna Liu, General Manager of HashKey Tokenisation, a tokenization service agency under HashKey Group, delivered a keynote speech on “The Process and Prospects of Tokenization in Hong Kong.” She stated, “From the perspective of a complete industry chain, virtual asset trading alone is not enough to support Hong Kong’s position as a virtual asset center. It is the aggregation of assets and projects that forms a complete ecosystem. The construction of a comprehensive international virtual asset center requires three levels: a compliant and efficient secondary market (trading market), a primary market (issuance market) based on an active secondary market, and the aggregation of virtual asset upstream and downstream industries based on active primary and secondary markets.”


At the “Web3+AI” session, Xiao Feng, Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain and CEO of HashKey Group, gave a speech. He said, “AI is a revolution in productivity, and blockchain is a revolution in production relations. The ultimate goal of AI is computing power, and the ultimate goal of blockchain is also computing power. The combination of the three is a complete topic. Blockchain, a network that allows strangers to collaborate on a large scale, can be used to solve Hong Kong’s talent needs for large-scale models, allowing talents from all over the world to contribute to Hong Kong’s large-scale models.”


At the roundtable on the theme of “AI+Web3: Trends and Opportunities,” a co-founder of decentralized AI data network Masa Network stated, “The data layer/distributed data collection is the biggest opportunity in the decentralized AI wave. Masa is trying to establish a truly decentralized AI data network using cryptoeconomics, where users will have ownership of their data for the first time. When their data is used to train AI models, they can receive rewards. This is also Masa’s vision, and decentralization and equality have always been Masa’s pursuit.”


Tags: ETF, HashKey Group, Telegram, TON, WEB3, Hong Kong Web3 Carnival
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