Hong Kong Can Serve Global Community through Web 3 Involvement: Ex-Financial Secretary

The former financial secretary of Hong Kong said Wednesday that the virtual economy would be important to Hong Kong, encouraging the young generation to be active through web 3 involvement and technology adoption.

Speaking at an online forum of Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit Extra Asia on Wednesday, John Tsang Chun-wah shared about his career in the virtual economy sector after stepping down as the financial head of the HKSAR’s administration.

With the rising trend of Web 3, the involvement of the Metaverse and the adoption of technology, “We are still at the early stage of technology of J curve for many areas, like AI or blockchain and so forth. But don’t expect a smooth transition at a leisurely pace; it’s more like a step function. In time, it might be a sort of like quite stable while it’s just get disrupted and jumped quite a few levels,” said Tseung, suggesting a mindset of globalisation would be a key element for the next generation to prepare the future of Web 3.

Tsang, also known as “Choi Yeah”, referring to the “Wealth God” in Chinese culture, has shown interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and their applications, believing this kind of digital asset would be valuable in the next generation.

The former finance executive also recently participated in an NFT project by using his personal image to explore its potential value. Tsang also serves as an advisor for young entrepreneurs related to virtual insurance and digital wealth firm in the private sector.

By issuing free “Choi Yeah” NFTs to people, Tsang hopes that the minting of the NFTs can raise awareness and interest in the public “beyond the use of a speculative tool.”

“The intention of mine is simple. To (us), we are going through a difficult period here in Hong Kong, and I would like to give people, or at least 3,000 people, something to cheer about it,” Tsang said.

Tsang further elaborated that he also appreciated the new business model on Web 3, a platform to conduct massive, decentralized activities, which is a fundamental infrastructure based on Web 2. He wishes people would benefit and be incentive to understand the nature of the digital ecosystem related to Web 3 or even the Metaverse through his NFT project.

However, Tsang said he is still sceptical towards cryptocurrencies because of their volatility, suggesting the public should take a conservative approach in finance, adding that crypto would be different compared to NFT in nature. He also warned of the bubble of crypto, which could be another dot.com bubble burst sparked in 1995.

Over decades, Hong Kong, as one of the global financial hubs among cities, has not only been facing regional competition such as from Singapore or in the greater bay area (GBA) in China but also some new challenges in terms of a virtual economy in recent years.

Speaking of “paradigm shift”, Tseung believes this is the generation of young people, suggesting the necessity to integrate technology and talents as the integration of engaging future trends.

“Paradigm shifts usually bring along many new and exciting business opportunities; and of course, it brings a lot of risks as well, so we need to capitalize on these emerging trends in a timely manner with the right mix of technologies and talents,” adding that “we have lots of different technologies that we can digest in this point, so the big need is really on talent aspects, we need to educate our younger generation, or even ourselves with the latest technology, so that we can become talents as well. ”