Hong Kong: crypto regulation is “very stable”

Johnny Ng, a Hong Kong lawmaker, assures Vitalik Buterin of his concerns about the country’s crypto regulation, saying the policies are “very stable.” 

Hong Kong and crypto regulation: a lawmaker reassures Vitalik Buterin

A member of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, Johnny Ng, responded on X (formerly Twitter) to concerns expressed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. 

Basically, Buterin, during this year’s Web3 Transition Summit held in Singapore on 4 September, reportedly warned crypto projects seeking to move their operations to Hong Kong. 

In this regard, Johnny Ng responded to Buterin by beginning his tweet (translated with Google translate) as follows: 

“Yesterday Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, shared his views on the development of the cryptocurrency project in Hong Kong. I respect his right to speak, but at the same time I think he does not understand or know the situation in Hong Kong. I have the following invitations and views.”

Next, the lawmaker then invited Buterin to go to Hong Kong to better understand the situation, and said something about it. 

Hong Kong: lawmaker’s responses on the country’s crypto regulatory policies

First, Ng specified that Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) with established procedures for making policies and laws. 

For example, every policy or law in Hong Kong must go through a discussion period, which includes policy drafting by the government, public consultation, discussion in various committees and general meetings of the Legislative Council, etc.

The legislator then responded to Buterin on his misgivings about the interaction between Hong Kong and mainland China, stating the following:

“The central government has always expressed its support for the development of ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong, so there is room for Hong Kong to formulate a policy on virtual assets and welcome compliant global companies to develop in Hong Kong.”

Finally, Ng’s tweet concludes by explaining that crypto friendly regulatory policies in Hong Kong are “very stable.” 

Predictions about the future of the Ethereum project

Also recently, Buterin made public some predictions regarding the future of the Ethereum crypto project. 

Basically, Buterin explained that he does not want Ethereum to rest on its laurels, but instead to continue to develop new innovative ideas. 

Just as happened with DeFi and NFTs, Buterin wants it to innovate again, always building on crypto technology and thus decentralized platforms that until a few years ago, did not exist. 

In this regard, the Ethereum co-founder said he was particularly interested in Farcaster, namely a decentralized protocol similar to Twitter, but built on OP’s core network, on which there is also the Warpcast mobile app. 

And indeed, Buterin has long been less and less present on X, while he is much more so on Warpcast, the decentralized social network.