Hong Kong Web3 Carnival is coming, what opportunities do we need to pay attention to?

[TL；DR]

1. Recently, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission confirmed that it is ready to accept applications for virtual asset spot ETFs, and some institutions have said that they expect clear news about Hong Kong Bitcoin spot ETFs in the first half of the year, so it is worth looking forward to whether there will be more progress on spot ETFs at this carnival event.

2. Some Hong Kong sector projects such as Conflux (CFX), Alchemy Pay (ACH), MANTRA (OM), SelfKey (KEY), Mask Network (MASK), and Linear Finance (LINA) are worth paying attention to.

Introduction

Since the beginning of last year, the Hong Kong market has been in the spotlight of crypto investors.

The successful launch of the US spot Bitcoin ETF has undoubtedly further ignited the public's confidence in the more open Hong Kong market, so the upcoming Hong Kong Web3 Carnival will undoubtedly become an industry event of great interest in the crypto market.

This year's highly-anticipated "2024 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival" will be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre 3FG for four consecutive days from April 6 to 9.

The event will focus on the core topics of each field of Web3, and invite industry leaders from around the world, as well as representatives of popular and promising projects, to share and discuss the cutting-edge technology solutions of Web3, so as to promote innovation and development in this field.

It is worth mentioning that, as an important leader in the industry, Gate.io will also host two of these important conferences, and participants are also welcome to participate in the discussion and exchange.

The "Liquity 2024 Institutional Digital Asset Summit" will be held by Gate.io and LTP at 09:00 - 16:30 (GMT+8) on April 5, which will explore the development and future trends of institutional digital assets.

Figure 1 Source: Public information

The other session will be "Futuristic Fusion: AI Meets Blockchain" hosted by Gate.io and AWS on April 8, 16:00 - 20:30 (GMT+8), which will focus on the synergies between AI and blockchain technology.

Let's take a look at the projects that may have potential connections to the carnival.

Bitcoin（BTC）

Since the US SEC approved spot bitcoin ETFs earlier this year, the entire crypto market has ushered in a wave of sharp gains, and at the same time, the market has begun to focus on Hong Kong's progress in this space.

In fact, as early as the end of 2022, CSOP Bitcoin Futures ETF and CSOP Ether Futures ETF were listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the first Bitcoin and Ether futures ETFs to be successfully listed in Asia, followed by the Samsung Bitcoin Futures Active ETF.

At present, Hong Kong financial institutions are accelerating the layout of Bitcoin spot ETFs. For example, Harvest International submitted an application for a Bitcoin spot ETF to the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission on January 26 this year.

Previously, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission also confirmed that it was ready to accept applications for virtual asset spot ETFs, and some institutions even said that they expect clear news about Hong Kong Bitcoin spot ETFs in the first half of the year.

It remains to be seen if there will be more progress on spot ETFs at this carnival event.

Conflux（CFX）

Conflux Network is a highly scalable decentralized blockchain network designed to achieve superior high throughput and fast transaction confirmations.

Its unique consensus algorithm is based on the special Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure of the tree graph, which realizes the innovation of blockchain technology.

Conflux Network won the Best Web3 Project Award in Hong Kong last year, and its token CFX rose from a low of $0.0215 to a high of $0.4876 in the first quarter of last year.

Figure 2 Source: Gate.io

Recently, Conflux Network came up with an innovative solution for EVM-compatible Bitcoin Layer 2 (BTC L2), while the mainnet is also expected to be deployed in May.

Conflux will host and co-host one event each in this carnival, and it will also be interesting to see if the token CFX will also have a positive performance before and after the event.

Alchemy Pay（ACH）

Alchemy Pay, a Singaporean payment project, is committed to building a payment bridge between fiat currency and mainstream digital currency.

At present, Alchemy Pay has officially supported Apple Pay, Google Pay, Visa and other payment methods to buy cryptocurrency, so that users around the world can easily use the universal currency to buy crypto assets.

Last year, Alchemy Pay shared Hong Kong financial services licenses with ZD Group, including Type 1, Type 4 and Type 9 licenses issued by the Securities and Futures Commission, covering securities trading, securities advisory and asset management, and recently integrated with Alipay Hong Kong (AlpayHK) to provide users in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia with the ability to pay and buy NFTs.

Figure 3 Source: Gate.io

Alchemy Pay will be co-organizing the "Oak Grove Crypto 2024" theme event at this carnival.

ACH is the second best token in the Hong Kong sector last year after Conflux, which fully demonstrates the market's high recognition and expectation for the Alchemy Pay project and its tokens, and the recent strong rise in the currency price has approached a record high.

MANTRA（OM）

FOUNDED IN 2020, MANTRA (FORMERLY MANTRA DAO) IS A VERTICALLY INTEGRATED AND COMPLIANT BLOCKCHAIN ECOSYSTEM.

MANTRA OMniverse includes MANTRA Node, a blockchain infrastructure-as-a-service business that includes retail staking, institutional delegation, node management, and white-label validator operations, MANTRA Chain, a protocol for regulated assets in the Cosmos ecosystem, and MANTRA Finance, a globally regulated DeFi platform.

Figure 4 Source: Gate.io

The recent performance of the token OM has also been good.

SelfKey（KEY）

SelfKey is an identity management platform built on the Ethereum blockchain developed by a team in Hong Kong, with the core purpose of ensuring that individuals and businesses have absolute ownership of their data, documents and digital assets.

Through SelfKey's technical architecture, users' data is no longer stored by traditional companies or institutions, but is safely stored in users' personal digital wallets, realizing the return of data ownership and control.

SelfKey not only provides advanced technology solutions, but also actively builds a market platform that is popular in mainland China.

Figure 5 Source: Gate.io

The platform not only provides users with convenient identity management services, but also realizes the secure storage and efficient use of identity information through blockchain technology. These identity information can be applied to diversified scenarios such as citizen identification and commercial services, providing great convenience for users' daily life and work.

Mask Network（MASK）

Mask Network is a social networking application designed to connect Web2 and Web3 and aims to enable users to better use the network without having to go through a centralized owner.

Important features of the platform include finance and e-commerce, where users can make payments, trade tokens, borrow and lend, follow excellent transactions, and more.

Figure 6 Source: Gate.io

The price trend of Mask Network (MASK), known as the "little Tencent of the currency circle", is relatively weak, but it is also worth paying attention to.

Linear Finance（LINA）

Developed in 2020 by the Hong Kong team, Linear Finance is a cross-chain compatible synthetic asset protocol on BNB Chain that allows users to gain synthetic exposure to a variety of assets, including cryptocurrencies, commodities, and market indices.

Figure 7 Source: Gate.io

Linear Finance recently launched version 2.0, adding staking coins that support stablecoin generation, simplifying asset trading and debt creation, upgrading cross-chain bridges in the future, expanding the list of synthetic assets, and more.

Summary

This Hong Kong Web3 Carnival will gather many people in the blockchain industry to discuss multiple topics such as AI, DePIN, Metaverse, Game, payment, etc., some related concepts, especially Hong Kong's local project tokens, may be subject to hype, investors should pay attention to seize the opportunity to avoid the risks brought by FOMO.

by Carl Y.

*This article represents the views of the author only and does not constitute any trading advice.

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