Huang Weilun, the Deputy Secretary of the Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, attended the opening ceremony of the "2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival" today and stated that we will continue to promote more industry participation and promote the stable and responsible development of the virtual market in Hong Kong through timely information dissemination, comprehensive public education, and other measures.

The Yuechi County Public Security Bureau in Sichuan Province successfully dismantled a pyramid scheme criminal gang that used virtual digital currency value-added services as a cover to speculate on "air coins". They arrested 11 key members of the gang, froze more than 12 million yuan in funds, and recovered more than 8 million yuan in stolen money. More than 10,000 people nationwide participated in the scheme, with a total fund size of more than 200 million yuan.

The Supreme People's Court held a press conference today, announcing the official launch and public access of the People's Court case library. Lawyer Liu Yang compiled all the cases related to virtual digital currency in the People's Court case library on his WeChat public account. This includes 3 cases involving the search keyword "Tether" (including USDT), 7 cases involving "Bitcoin", 1 case involving "Ethereum", 8 cases involving "virtual currency", and 1 case involving "NFT" (including digital collections).

Tiger Securities announced that it has been granted upgraded conditions for its Type 1 license by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, allowing professional investors to trade virtual assets on Tiger Securities' licensed platform under the Securities and Futures Commission. Tiger Securities is one of the earlier companies among internet brokers to receive this license upgrade. In the future, professional investor clients can trade virtual assets on Tiger Trade, Tiger Securities' flagship trading platform. Hong Kong residents with investment assets exceeding HKD 8 million or corporations with assets exceeding HKD 40 million are eligible to trade virtual assets on Tiger Trade in the future. The company also plans to open virtual asset trading to retail investors in compliance with regulatory requirements. Tiger International's CFO, Zeng Qingfei, said that this license upgrade is an important step for Tiger Securities and he is pleased to introduce virtual asset trading in this important area to further meet the trading needs of customers.

Alexandra Jour-Schroeder, Deputy Director-General of the Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union of the European Commission, stated that the European Union is maintaining resilience and developing many green finance projects to channel funds into projects. It is expected that more investments will be combined with green finance in the future, and efforts will be made to increase digitization. The European Union and Hong Kong are also developing in the field of virtual assets, and are developing digital currencies. They are also working on disclosure to help manage risks, and will spend more time on disclosure and implementing more details in the future. Therefore, the two sides can work together.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission's official website for virtual asset trading platform license application information shows that NewBX Limited, the company behind the virtual asset trading platform "Bixin.com", submitted a virtual asset trading platform license application on January 24th, but has not yet disclosed its Chinese name. As of now, the number of companies that have submitted applications for virtual asset trading licenses in Hong Kong has reached 13.

Wu Jiezhuang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, expressed his hope for the budget proposal's principles of zero taxation, less fees, increased vitality, and opposition to different tax proposals suggested by the public, including the collection of value-added tax on assets, departure tax, and virtual asset stamp duty, during a meeting with Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Financial Secretary Chen Maobo and Deputy Secretary Huang Weilun this morning. He believes that it is necessary to enhance the development momentum of various industries, break down barriers, and vigorously develop the Web3 industry.

The South Korean financial authorities are developing regulatory rules for encrypted assets "mixers" that are being misused by illegal organizations as a means of money laundering. A spokesperson for the Financial Information Analysis Institute (FIU) of the South Korean Financial Services Commission said: "If encrypted assets are put into a mixer, it will be very difficult to track funds and monitor crimes. We believe that the risk of money laundering through mixers is very high. After the United States introduced mixer regulations last year, South Korea also began to consider this. Regulating encrypted asset mixers requires international cooperation."

According to Jin Yu Cheng, a professor at Yonsei University Law School in South Korea, there needs to be a thorough examination of whether trading virtual asset futures should be considered a gambling crime. This proposal is related to the fact that South Korean financial authorities have not classified virtual assets as financial products. According to Article 10, Section 2 of the Korean Capital Markets Act, financial investment business operators engaged in financial investment business are not subject to Article 246 of the Criminal Code, which means that licensed financial investment business operators engaged in financial investment business are not subject to gambling crimes. On the other hand, with regard to South Korean virtual assets, since they are not financial products, exceptions cannot be applied.

YK Law Firm in South Korea stated that the functions of listing and delisting assets on cryptocurrency exchanges must be separated. In the future, it is recommended to establish an independent review committee or delegate the review authority to self-regulatory organizations.