For Hong Kong, the timing of the FTX collapse could hardly have been worse. Just weeks ago, the city underlined its ambitions to be Asia’s premier crypto hub with a banner announcement from Hong Kong financial secretary Paul Chan.
During a week of conferences to celebrate the scrapping of suffocating pandemic restrictions on the territory, Chan signalled Hong Kong was to move towards allowing the retail trading of crypto assets and was exploring the listing of crypto exchange traded funds. “We want to make our policy stance clear to global markets, to demonstrate our determination to explore financial innovation together with the global, virtual-assets community,” said Chan at the end of October.
Sam Bankman-Fried, now facing criminal charges, was even a headline speaker at the Hong Kong event and endorsed the city’s move. “If you look at what the crypto hubs will be in the world . . . if you look at the east, it’s not as obvious,” Bankman-Fried said at the time. “It could be Singapore, could be somewhere like Busan in Korea, but I think there is a real chance it ends up being Hong Kong.” Bankman-Fried established FTX in Hong Kong in 2018, and flourished in the city before moving to the Bahamas last year.