Compiled by: Tia, Techub News
As one of the top crypto asset companies in Asia, HashKey Group has always been at the forefront of the development of the Web3 ecosystem. From Hong Kong to Singapore, to Japan and Bermuda, HashKey has established a highly compliant digital asset ecosystem network covering the world. In the rapid development of the Hong Kong Web3 ecosystem, HashKey has not only built a compliant exchange, but also promoted innovation in the field of asset tokenization with its Tokenisation business as the core.
In an exclusive interview with Techub News, Anna Liu of HashKey Group shared in depth the group's global strategy, the core value of the tokenization department, and the important role of tokenization in promoting the integration of traditional finance and Web3 markets in the future. From participating in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Ensemble project to supporting the tokenization of native and real-world assets on the chain, HashKey is empowering high-quality projects and reshaping the rules of global capital flows through technological innovation and compliance support. In this interview, we will take a deep look at how HashKey leads the tokenization wave and depict its future development blueprint.
Techub News: As both are Asian financial centers, why did HashKey choose to focus its strategic focus on Hong Kong instead of Singapore? How does HashKey plan to promote global business development through Hong Kong as a platform?
Anna Liu: Hong Kong and Singapore are not only the financial centers of Asia, but also the global crypto asset centers in the future. We have in-depth layout in both Hong Kong and Singapore, and we also hold relevant licenses. The first license issued to HashKey should be the No. 9 license obtained by HashKey Capital in Hong Kong. Both Hong Kong and Singapore have very friendly policies. The differences in supervision make them unique in the development of Web3 industry. For example, Hong Kong pays more attention to the supervision of transaction-related businesses, while Singapore pays more attention to the supervision of asset management, payment and other fields. In the next few years, I believe that both places will continue to seek a balanced development between innovation and supervision, and the prospects are worth looking forward to. Since 2018, HashKey Group has gradually established a global Web3 ecological map covering Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Bermuda and other places within the regulatory framework of high compliance standards. We will continue to promote the feasibility of large-scale application of blockchain technology in multiple fields and provide reliable and accessible digital asset services to one billion users around the world.
Techub News: HashKey's strategic layout in Hong Kong is not just an exchange, but also covers a wide range of ecosystem construction. Can you elaborate on HashKey Group's overall strategy in the global digital asset and Web3 fields? In particular, the strategic role of the newly established Tokenisation department? How does the Tokenisation business empower other business units?
Anna Liu: We believe that the main theme of future industry development will be "integration", so HashKey hopes to establish a full-ecosystem Web3 financial infrastructure within a regulatory framework with high compliance standards. On the one hand, we hope to promote the integration of traditional and Web3 financial markets, and on the other hand, we hope to promote the integration of Eastern and Western Web3 markets.
At present, HashKey has established businesses in various fields such as global licensed exchanges, investment and asset management, tokenization, and infrastructure services. The first one you may know is HashKey Capital. HashKey Capital's fund management scale in 2024 will reach 1 billion US dollars. It has invested in more than 600 blockchain projects, including Berachain, Babylon, Aethir, Catizen and other well-known projects. In the past two years, you may have heard more about HashKey Exchange. At present, the total transaction volume of HashKey Exchange has exceeded 535 billion Hong Kong dollars, and its assets are about to exceed 6 billion Hong Kong dollars. It is already the largest compliant virtual asset exchange in Hong Kong. HashKey Global, an offshore compliant exchange that obtained a Bermuda license this year, has achieved profitability in 2 months since its launch. As of November 11, according to the latest data from Coingecko, HashKey Global ranked 7th in global transactions and became one of the fastest growing licensed exchanges in the world in 2024. In addition, our HashKey Cloud business provides professional, stable and secure blockchain services to global customers. Its node verification services cover more than 80 mainstream public chains, with an asset management scale of more than 1.2 million ETH, ranking top three in Asia and top ten in the world.
From the perspective of the entire industry chain, HashKey Group has established a compliant and efficient secondary market. However, in order to ensure the continued healthy development of the ecosystem, we deeply realize that we must continue to introduce high-quality assets to maintain the vitality and innovation momentum of the ecosystem. Therefore, we established the HashKey Tokenisation business line last year. Since its establishment in 2023, HashKey Tokenisation has focused on providing comprehensive digital asset issuance solutions for cooperative projects, helping Web3 entrepreneurial teams from 0 to 1 token issuance process, providing business consulting, technical guidance, economic model design, legal compliance consulting and other professional support. HashKey Tokenisation not only works closely with multiple business units within the group, but also conducts in-depth collaboration with HashKey Group's extensive ecological partners, aiming to achieve the optimal allocation of resources through two-way empowerment. We actively promote various funds in the group's ecology to provide financing support for high-quality projects, make full use of HashKey Cloud's technical capabilities to provide advanced infrastructure services to project partners, and provide project parties with compliant exchanges including HashKey Exchange. Coin resource docking. In addition, our public chain HashKey Chain, which has already started public testing and will be launched on the mainnet this year, can provide a bridge for Tokenisation's cooperative projects to link to the Web3 ecosystem. Earlier, HashKey Tokenisation has participated in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Ensemble project to help promote the development of Hong Kong's tokenization market.
This all-round service model not only effectively enhances the overall vitality of the HashKey Group ecosystem, but also provides customers with reliable full-life cycle support to ensure the maximization and win-win of all parties' interests. Through continuous collaboration and innovation, HashKey Group continues to promote the common growth and prosperity of the ecosystem and consolidate its leadership in the global Web3 field.
Techub News: HashKey has always been on the compliance route, and it is speculated that HashKey's Tokenisation business should also be compliant. However, it seems difficult for compliant Tokenisation to expand the market. On the one hand, it has high requirements for investors, and on the other hand, due to the need to comply with compliance requirements, the biggest advantages of being on the chain - on-chain composability and DeFi - cannot participate. According to this logic, the user group participating in Tokenisation should be relatively limited? At present, what kind of users will choose to invest in Tokenisation assets? Based on various disadvantages, what is the reason why HashKey still firmly chooses to develop Tokenisation? In other words, what is the significance of Tokenisation to the entire crypto industry? What role does Tokenisation play in it?
Anna Liu: To be precise, HashKey Tokenisation has always been committed to being at the forefront of the industry, combining compliance with market innovation and promoting the improvement of industry standards. We clearly recognize that the road to compliance is full of challenges, especially when it comes to meeting the needs of on-chain business innovation while meeting strict regulatory requirements. Therefore, our team focuses on the global market and continues to explore high-quality targets to support the healthy development of the industry.
HashKey Tokenisation's business direction is mainly divided into two major areas: the first is the tokenization business of traditional assets , bringing more high-quality assets to the chain and achieving seamless integration with the Web3 ecosystem; the second is the support service for native assets on the chain, providing consulting, financing advice, technical support and community operation resources for Web3 projects to create a full range of comprehensive solutions.
Regarding the tokenization business, the current market is still in its early stages, and tokenization applications are mainly at the proof-of-concept (PoC) stage. Although the technology and compliance guidelines are not yet mature, the industry needs leading companies to take the lead in demonstration, promote technological progress and compliance innovation, and ultimately achieve large-scale application. We choose to actively participate in this process because we believe that high-quality and unique assets will bring significant appeal to Hong Kong's compliant exchanges and financial ecology. Through a differentiated asset portfolio, we can bring unique competitiveness to Hong Kong in the global capital market and attract the attention of international investors.
As a bridge and connector, we help cooperative projects issue digital assets, especially helping entrepreneurs gradually build asset issuance models from 0 to 1. When deeply involved in cooperative projects, we not only invest a lot of time, but also provide professional support in distributed ledger technology, token economics and compliant issuance architecture to help projects sort out clear business models and growth paths.
By enabling high-quality asset tokenization through blockchain technology, HashKey Tokenisation can create liquidity for various projects and become a booster for Hong Kong's economic upgrading and industrial transformation. We provide a full range of services including economic mechanism design and tokenization consulting for security token (STO) and real asset tokenization (RWA) projects to ensure that they achieve innovative financing models while complying with regulatory requirements.
Techub News: What is HashKey's vision for the future of Tokenisation? What is the roadmap to achieve this vision? What is the current focus of Tokenisation? What is the development stage of Tokenisation? What measures are planned to expand the scale of Tokenisation?
Anna Liu: Our vision is to become Asia’s leading tokenisation professional service provider. Through high-standard benchmark projects, we provide the market with successful practices that can be used as reference, establish an innovative and compliant brand image, and establish a unique positioning in the industry.
Development status and main focus
Currently, the Tokenisation business is in its early stages of development. We are focusing on the selection of high-quality assets and the issuance of compliant tokens. In the process of maintaining close communication with regulatory authorities, we focus on how to effectively promote the primary market issuance of tokenized assets and the compliant circulation of the secondary market within the compliance framework.
The core challenges we face at this stage include:
(1) Identification and evaluation of high-quality assets: Tokenization is not suitable for all assets. At present, most tokenization projects focus on ownership or future income rights. Therefore, assets suitable for tokenization need to have stable value support and clear profit prospects.
(2) Investment attractiveness in the primary market: Companies usually choose tokenization to expand financing channels or explore new markets. For investors, return on investment and stability are the core concerns, so assets with higher value and stability are more attractive in the primary market.
(3) Expansion of circulation in the secondary market: Under the current Hong Kong regulatory framework, tokenized assets are limited to professional investors or institutional participation. Whether the scope of investors will be further expanded in the future still needs further guidance from regulators.
Future development stage
Based on this background, our future development path includes the following stages:
Step 1: Benchmark project pilot. We will give priority to high-quality assets with value support and stable returns, and create tokenized projects with strong compliance to verify their primary issuance and secondary circulation mechanisms within the compliance framework.
Step 2: Explore business integration with Web3. Within the scope permitted by policies, launch a minimum viable product (MVP) and gradually cooperate with DeFi and other fields. Through integration with the Web3 business model, we will verify the feasibility and value creation potential of tokenization in the emerging financial ecosystem.
The third step: large-scale development. With the gradual improvement of regulatory policies, the improvement of technical capabilities, and the continuous maturity of business models, when the business value is sufficient to support the compliance costs, we will achieve large-scale application. Through this stage of ecological cooperation, we will attract more partners to jointly promote the implementation of tokenization on a global scale.
We firmly believe that with the advancement of technology and the gradual improvement of compliance standards, Tokenisation will become a key engine for the integration of financial innovation and capital markets, promoting the mainstream application of virtual assets and the efficient flow of global capital.
Techub News: Are there many projects developing Tokenisation in Hong Kong? What are the main projects supported by the Tokenisation department? Are there any projects worth paying attention to?
Anna Liu: HashKey Tokenisation has always been a pioneer in the field of tokenization of on-chain native assets and real-world assets. Many institutions and project parties are actively seeking cooperation with us to jointly promote the innovation and implementation of tokenization business.
It is worth mentioning that HashKey is deeply involved in the working groups of two key application directions of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) Ensemble project: fixed income and investment funds , and green and sustainable finance .
In the field of fixed income and investment funds, we have worked with a number of institutions to explore the use cases of tokenized money market funds. Currently, pilot work in this area is progressing steadily, with the goal of building a tokenized ecosystem that can meet compliance requirements and achieve efficient transactions. This is not only a supplement to the traditional financial market, but also an innovative boost to the emerging virtual asset market.
In the direction of green and sustainable finance, we focus on the innovative combination of "blockchain + Internet of Things" to help the tokenization and issuance of more high-quality real-world assets through digital means. We believe that such assets should not only stay in the proof-of-concept stage, but need to truly empower actual business scenarios. For example, we are actively exploring solutions that combine IoT data with blockchain to improve the transparency and liquidity of assets and bring greater trust and efficiency to the market. In addition, in the field of on-chain native assets, we are also actively trying various innovative directions. For example, in the distributed computing power network, we solve the computing power bottleneck problem in the traditional market through decentralization. This innovation not only helps to reduce computing power costs, but also improves the elasticity and scalability of the network through a distributed architecture, laying a solid foundation for the sustainable development of on-chain native assets.
The Hong Kong government's goal is to develop Hong Kong into an international virtual asset center, and HashKey Tokenisation will actively respond to this call. We are not only committed to promoting the frontier exploration of tokenization business, but also hope to help more Web3 projects that can create real business value to land in Hong Kong through professional services and innovative technologies. We firmly believe that through close cooperation with the government and all parties in the industry, Hong Kong will occupy a global leading position in virtual assets and Web3 ecology.
Techub News: How to balance the costs and benefits in promoting Tokenisation?
Anna Liu: Tokenisation, as a tool for financial and business model innovation , has long-term growth potential, but it is difficult to achieve cost coverage in the early stages. This is also the main reason why tokenization has not been widely used. Commercial tokenization business involves multiple cost challenges, such as compliance costs, technology development, and marketing promotion.
Judging from the current European and American tokenization projects, scenarios that generate income completely on the chain (such as mining, liquidity provision, etc.) are more suitable for the dividend token model. In such projects, income is automatically distributed through smart contracts, and the authenticity and transparency of data are higher. Although on-chain smart contracts can significantly simplify the dividend process, they still cannot completely replace auditing. Compared with traditional industries, the audit difficulty and time cost of this type of on-chain model are reduced, but regulatory conditions must still be met.
In general, as an emerging industry, Tokenisation still needs to strike a balance between reducing costs and achieving innovative benefits. At the current stage, by improving the underlying technology to achieve "cost reduction and efficiency improvement", combined with innovative models such as dividend tokens and automatic distribution of on-chain benefits, Tokenisation has shown its application potential in specific financial scenarios. With the further improvement of technology and supervision, we are confident that Tokenisation will not only create new revenue models in the future, but will also change the landscape of the capital market and provide a broader development space for global financial innovation.
