On 27 June 2025, Hong Kong’s Financial Services and Treasury Bureau (FSTB) and Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) jointly published public consultation papers to expand Hong Kong’s regulatory regime for virtual assets (VAs) to include (i) dealing in VAs and (ii) VA custodian services.
Background
The two consultations
The Securities and Futures Commission’s (SFC) has on 19 February 2025 rolled out a new regulatory roadmap setting out its core guiding principles to continue Hong Kong’s development as a virtual assets (VA) hub. The roadmap adopts the “ASPIRe” slogan representing its 5 pillars – Access, Safeguards, Products
Introduction
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced on 16 January 2025 that new applicants for a virtual asset trading platform (VATP) licence will be subject to a revamped and expedited external assessment process.
Previous external assessment process
VATP licence applicants who had submitted their application on or before