The two-day event ran August 27 and 28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Organised by BTC Inc., a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc., and presented by Metaplanet, the conference brought together more than 200 speakers, 500 companies, and 100 sponsors. The 2026 edition marked the third consecutive year Bitcoin Asia was held in Hong Kong, a continuity that underpins the city's claim to a leading role in the region's institutional crypto landscape.

Unlike prior editions, which skewed toward retail crypto audiences, the 2026 programme centred on enterprise adoption, with topics including corporate treasury strategy and deal-making formalised through a dedicated "Deal Day" format, real-world asset tokenisation (the process of representing ownership of physical or financial assets on a blockchain), and a "Bitcoin for Corporations Symposium."

BTC Inc. CEO Brandon Green confirmed the event would return in 2027 for a fourth consecutive year. "Hong Kong has become the anchor point for Bitcoin in Asia, and this will be our fourth year building on that," Green said.

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A Regulated Brokerage Takes the Stage

Among the keynote speakers was Richard Zhengwei He, CEO of Forthright Securities, a Hong Kong brokerage that received a significant regulatory upgrade from the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in May 2026. The SFC granted Forthright Securities and its sister firm Forthright Capital what the regulator calls a Virtual Asset Uplift Approval, authorising both entities to deal in crypto assets under their existing licences. Forthright Securities holds Type 1 (dealing in securities), Type 2, Type 4 (advising on securities), and Type 5 licences, while Forthright Capital holds Type 1, Type 4, and Type 9 (asset management) licences. Together, the two entities give the group simultaneous virtual asset approval spanning dealing, advisory, and asset management. According to the company, few brokerages in Hong Kong have achieved this combination of approvals across all three business lines simultaneously.

Forthright Securities is a subsidiary of JF SmartInvest Holdings Ltd, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under ticker 9636.HK.

Its current retail product, marketed under the name "One Account, Invest Globally," allows clients to trade Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana alongside conventional equities and futures in a single account. Professional investor clients can additionally access USDT (Tether), Chainlink, Uniswap, and Litecoin on top of the standard retail asset suite through the same platform.

A company spokesperson said virtual assets are "evolving from a standalone trading category into an integral component of global asset allocation." Forthright's leadership also noted that traditional financial institutions globally still allocate less than 1% of assets to crypto, a figure the company has cited from its own analysis without an independent third-party data source in the research record.

A disclosure note is warranted here: the primary South China Morning Post article covering Forthright's conference appearance is clearly labelled as advertiser-produced content sponsored by the company itself. Claims originating from that source should be read as company statements, not independent reporting. Supporting data cited in this article has been cross-checked against SFC filings, legal analyses from Sidley Austin and Deacons, and independent reporting from CoinReporter, AsiaBizToday, and Coindesk.

In July 2026, Forthright opened its largest flagship experience hub in Hong Kong and debuted an AI Investment Terminal as part of its "AI + Advisory" strategy, moves that reinforce the firm's positioning at the intersection of traditional brokerage services and emerging financial technology.

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The Regulatory Numbers Behind the Narrative

Hong Kong's SFC has authorised 13 companies to operate virtual asset trading platforms as of early 2026, up from a handful just two years ago, according to industry reporting by Fintech News Hong Kong. Readers seeking the authoritative and current count can consult the SFC's publicly available virtual asset trading platform register directly.

According to Forthright Securities, more than 200 corporations have completed virtual asset licence upgrades.

In April 2026, the HKMA issued its first stablecoin licences, approving only two of 36 applicants: HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial Limited, a joint venture between Standard Chartered, HKT, and Animoca Brands. Those licences were made possible by the Stablecoins Ordinance, which took effect in August 2025 and established the legislative framework under which the HKMA can authorise and regulate Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin issuers.

The low approval rate signals that Hong Kong is deliberately keeping the entry bar high, a characterisation consistent with CoinReporter's analysis of the approvals process.

On the exchange-traded fund side, Hong Kong listed its first spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs in April 2024. That timing predated the US approval of spot Ether ETFs, which the SEC granted in May 2024. For spot Bitcoin ETFs, however, the US moved first: the SEC approved products from BlackRock, Fidelity, and others in January 2024, approximately three months before Hong Kong's Bitcoin ETF launch.

By August 2025, nine spot crypto ETF products were trading on the HKEX across Hong Kong dollar, US dollar, and renminbi share classes.

Data from Chainalysis, cited by Yahoo Finance and FXStreet, indicates Hong Kong's spot BTC ETFs now absorb roughly 20% of global Bitcoin volume during US off-hours, with bid-ask spreads averaging around 0.5% in 2025. Analysts attribute a roughly 15% reduction in Bitcoin price volatility during US market holidays partly to this Asian ETF liquidity.

In May 2026, Hong Kong's spot Bitcoin ETF net inflows reached approximately US$467 million in a single trading day.

The SFC's total asset and wealth management survey puts Hong Kong's AUM at HK$42.2 trillion, or roughly US$5.4 trillion.

Forthright Securities has publicly framed even a 1% reallocation of that base toward digital assets as representing HK$400 billion in potential inflows. That figure is the company's own illustration and should not be read as a regulatory projection.

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Hong Kong and Singapore: A Competitive Landscape

Any assessment of Hong Kong's crypto ambitions must account for Singapore, which has pursued its own regulated digital asset framework through the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Hong Kong holds several structural advantages in the current environment. It imposes no capital gains tax on investments. It gives mainland Chinese capital a uniquely accessible gateway into international markets. It moved faster than Singapore on approving spot crypto ETFs, and its stablecoin licensing framework has an operational head start over Singapore's equivalent regime. Singapore, for its part, retains meaningful strengths: a mature custody infrastructure, a well-established legal system familiar to common law jurisdictions across Asia and Africa, and a deep blockchain development talent pool. For firms choosing between the two jurisdictions, the decision turns largely on target markets. Hong Kong's mainland China access is unmatched; Singapore's Southeast Asian connectivity and legal infrastructure remain compelling for others. The growing divergence between the two frameworks is one reason institutional crypto firms have been publicly announcing relocations and expansions in Hong Kong over the past year.

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Regional Implications

For markets outside the US and Europe, Hong Kong's trajectory carries concrete relevance. South Asian investors and family offices holding assets through Hong Kong structures now have a clearer licensed pathway into institutional crypto products. India's regulatory posture sharpens the contrast: high taxes deducted at source on crypto trades and the absence of a domestic licensing path for institutional digital asset activity leave South Asian capital with few regulated alternatives, making Hong Kong's framework practically significant for the region.

The newly approved HKD-backed stablecoins, designed in part for cross-border payments, could eventually intersect with remittance corridors serving India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, where demand for low-cost settlement options is high.

In Africa, Hong Kong's phased licensing approach (covering trading, custody, advisory, and asset management in sequence) offers a workable policy template for regulators in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana who are building digital asset frameworks from scratch. Hong Kong's advances in real-world asset tokenisation also open a potential pathway for African sovereign debt and infrastructure financing, allowing governments and development agencies to represent these instruments on-chain and access a broader international investor base. For African corporate treasurers navigating persistent local currency volatility, bank-backed stablecoins tied to stable reserve currencies represent a practical operational tool that Hong Kong's new licensing framework is beginning to formalise.

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What Comes Next

Hong Kong's regulatory pipeline is not finished. The Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and the SFC are jointly advancing legislation to govern virtual asset dealers and custodians, with a bill expected to be introduced to the Legislative Council before year-end. With this article published in early September 2026, that deadline is now approximately four months away, a timeline that signals the legislation is an active priority rather than a distant ambition.

A separate licensing regime for crypto advisory and portfolio management services has already completed consultation and sets a minimum paid-up capital requirement of HK$5 million.

For protocol teams and DeFi projects operating in or marketing to Hong Kong users, that means front-end features that resemble investment advice or portfolio management may soon require a licence to offer legally.