According to TechFlow, Gary Tiu, executive director and head of regulatory affairs at Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange OSL, said at the Foresight 2024 conference held on Sunday that Hong Kong's cryptocurrency spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) face systemic obstacles and the market generally lacks incentives for ETFs.
Tiu pointed out that there are a large number of middlemen in the distribution chain of financial products in Hong Kong, such as brokers, banks, etc., who earn considerable profits from distributing financial products. This has led to the Hong Kong market preferring unlisted products, while ETFs allow anyone to execute transactions in the market, providing only a small commission incentive for stockbrokers.
In addition, Tiu said that Hong Kong regulators and financial institutions are biased against Bitcoin, Ethereum and cryptocurrencies in general, and believe that Bitcoin ETFs are a type of special risk asset that requires extra caution.
Chen Zhao, director of digital assets at Fosun Wealth, added that Hong Kong crypto ETFs also lack a sufficient number of traders and brokers.
