Hong Kong legislator firm G-Rocket is aiming to attract 1,000 Web3 start-ups to the city-state and will help them with necessary funding over the next three years.
JonnyNg Kit-Chong, a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, is a co-founder of a start-up accelerator that aims to lure 1,000 Web3 companies to the city-state over the next three years.
Jonny Ng Kit-Chong has served as a legislative council representative for the election committee constituency since January of this year. The politician and engineer have disclosed holding interests in almost 40 different firms, putting his finger in several pies.
One of these businesses is the startup accelerator G-Rocket, which he and Casper Wong co-founded in 2016.
Wong, the organization’s current CEO, discussed the company’s new initiative, “Hong Kong Web 3.0 Hub,” with the South China Morning Post on December 23.
The CEO said that G-first Rocket’s goal is to assist 100 Web3 start-ups in expanding their operations before increasing the total to 1,000 within three years.
In the post-pandemic age, “we aim to help attract strong firms and people back to Hong Kong,” added Wong.
In order to assist Hong Kong businesses in gaining access to office space, banking, and government services, Wong specifically said that the company would collaborate with the online ZA Bank, the government-run incubator Cyberport, and the real estate giant New World Development.
G-plan Rocket’s is a component of a larger Web3 drive made by the Hong Kong government to transform the special administrative region of China into a crypto powerhouse that can rival Singapore.
Elizabeth Wong, the head of the fintech division of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong, unveiled a number of forward-thinking regulatory crypto suggestions in late October, including the approval of trading in virtual assets.
According to a government statement released on October 31, “We will implement timely and required crash barriers to prevent real and prospective hazards in accordance with international standards, so that virtual asset innovations may grow in Hong Kong in a sustainable way.”
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) having exposure to Bitcoin and Ether have been permitted to list with the SFC as of October 31; CSOP Asset Management was one of the first to do so.
Before CSOP Asset Management listed two cryptocurrency futures ETFs on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange the next day, it had garnered $73.6 million in investments on December 15.
The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (AML/CTF) system in Hong Kong was also modified by the Legislative Council on December 8 to cover virtual asset service providers in addition to conventional financial institutions.
