Retail cryptocurrency investors in Hong Kong now have expanded options with the approval of Avalanche (AVA) and Chainlink (LINK) listings on Hashkey, one of the two fully licensed exchanges in the region. Previously, retail investors in Hong Kong were limited to Bitcoin and Ether.
Professional investors, those with portfolios valued at least 8 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately $1 million) or who represent financial institutions, have access to a broader range of cryptocurrencies.
Legally Uncomplicated Tokens Avalanche (AVA) and Chainlink (LINK) are now available for retail trading on Hashkey against the US dollar. Hashkey CEO Livio Weng explained to the South China Morning Post that these tokens were selected because they are free of legal conflicts, unlike some other higher market cap cryptocurrencies. AVA, the native coin of the Avalanche network, has a market cap of $9.3 billion, ranking it as the 13th largest cryptocurrency. LINK, the coin for the Chainlink oracle network, ranks 16th with a market cap of $6.9 billion.
Weng commented, “This suggests that Hong Kong is accelerating in the Web3 space. While there could be many factors for this acceleration, a significant catalyst might have been when Trump expressed his intention to advance Web3 in the United States.” He also noted that Hashkey could receive approval to list more cryptocurrencies for retail trading within weeks.
Read more: Donald Trump Launches 4th NFT Collection on Bitcoin Ordinals
Limited Number of Exchanges in Hong Kong Hong Kong began permitting retail crypto trading in August 2023 when Hashkey and OSL, the other fully compliant crypto exchange, upgraded their licenses. Other exchanges operate under a “deemed to be licensed” status, with the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission (SFC) requiring those without this status or a license to close by June 1.
The SFC stopped accepting virtual asset trading platform license applications at the end of February, leading at least 13 exchanges to withdraw their applications.
Cre: cointelegraph.
I’m Jessi Lee, currently living in Singapore. I am currently working as a trader for AZCoin company, with 5 years of experience in the cryptocurrency market, I hope to bring you useful information and knowledge about virtual currency investment.
Email: [email protected]
