Hong Kong Legislative Council member Johnny Ng took to X today to respond to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and his recent comments about Hong Kong’s crypto “friendliness”.
It follows Buterin’s comments at the Web3 Transition Summit in Singapore on 14 September where the ETH mastermind said: “I don’t understand Hong Kong well. I understand even less the complicated interaction between Hong Kong and the mainland lately.”
He added: “If any crypto project wants to make Hong Kong their home, they would want to have some confidence, not just that it’s friendly now, but that it will continue to be friendly years from now when all kinds of unknown, regulatory and political and other kinds of events are going to happen.”
Ng has since tweeted a long reply to this and says “sincerely invites” Vitalik to visit Hong Kong to get a better understanding of the area and added: “I am willing to coordinate with relevant institutions and enterprises to share the situation in Hong Kong with them.”
Ng also tweeted: “The country and Hong Kong do not have the complications Vitalik said. The central government has always expressed support for the development of “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong, so Hong Kong has room to formulate policies on virtual assets and welcomes global compliance companies to develop in Hong Kong.”
In answer to Buterin’s earlier question of “how stable” Hong Hong’s friendliness is, Ng replied that its “policies and laws will not change overnight” adding: “All relevant strategies and regulations have gone through major social consensus and complete procedures. Therefore, I can tell Mr. Vitalik that Hong Kong’s policies are very stable.”
Hong Kong and crypto
Meanwhile, Hong Kong continues to keep its spot as the leading ‘crypto-ready’ location for two years in a row, with a score of 8.36 compared with Switzerland at 8.18, and the US at 7.25, according to the latest Worldwide Crypto Readiness Report.
The report states: “This semi-autonomous part of China has a long history of being a centre of trade and commerce in the region, a reputation that seems set to extend to the crypto economy. Crypto traders in Hong Kong can benefit from tax rates of 0%. At the same time, there are a large number of crypto ATMs in the city and many businesses operating within the blockchain and crypto industries.”
Elsewhere, the stats reveal that the Dutch show the most interest in crypto per person, while the US is home to the largest network of Bitcoin ATMs.
