Hong Kong concept coins are on fire, here’s an article to understand 20 key local crypto projects in Hong Kong
"General Motors," China. Are you experiencing FOMO?Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
After the news that "Hong Kong residents will be able to freely buy and sell cryptocurrencies starting June 1", Hong Kong concept coins have begun to soar.
In terms of the increase over the past 7 days, as of the time of publication, CFX (Conflux) leads with an increase of over 400%, followed by COCOS (Coscos-BCX) and KEY (SelfKey) with increases of over 200%, ACH (Alchemy Pay) with over 140%, and FIL (Filecoin) with over 70%.
Source: @0xKillTheWolf
The surge indicates a shift in confidence among crypto investors. Although the aforementioned rumors about Hong Kong's crypto policy have been confirmed to be misleading, the actual crypto policy to be implemented in Hong Kong on June 1 is related to a licensing system for virtual asset service providers.
In contrast to the heavy blows dealt by the U.S. SEC to cryptocurrency exchanges like Kraken, BUSD issuer Paxos, and Binance, Hong Kong has been continuously embracing Web3 since last year, prompting crypto investors to bet on Hong Kong and other Eastern crypto-friendly regions.
Additionally, last week, "Conflux Network announced a partnership with China Telecom to trial blockchain-supported SIM cards in Hong Kong", which significantly boosted the price of Conflux and contributed to Hong Kong concept coins and Chinese concept coins becoming hot topics in crypto KOL discussions.
Today, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission officially launched a public consultation on proposed regulations applicable to virtual asset trading platform operators. The consultation document mentions that licensed platforms will be allowed to offer qualified large virtual assets to retail customers, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. With such a hot topic, Sun Yuchen naturally cannot miss out; he stated that Huobi Global has applied for a cryptocurrency trading license in Hong Kong and will be able to expand the services and products it offers to Hong Kong customers, providing a wider range of cryptocurrency trading and investment options. Furthermore, Huobi will launch a new exchange, Huobi Hong Kong, in Hong Kong.
"Brother Sun's entry" has become an important symbol of the heated Hong Kong sector.
However, it is worth noting that the concept of Hong Kong is currently unclear, and the leading logic of several so-called Hong Kong concept projects is also vague, so crypto investors need to be wary of Ponzi schemes.
Before the rollout of Hong Kong's crypto policies this year, ChainCatcher reviewed important local crypto projects in Hong Kong through the crypto data platform RootData (with core business or teams primarily based in Hong Kong), covering multiple fields such as CeFi, DeFi, gaming/metaverse, infrastructure, and tools.
Currently, there are about 50 local crypto projects in Hong Kong, with nearly half distributed in the CeFi and CEX sectors, followed by the gaming/metaverse sector. This article provides a brief overview of some important projects.
CeFi
1. Amber Group
Amber Group was founded in 2017 and is a digital asset platform that provides comprehensive digital asset services covering investment, financing, and trading, serving over 1,000 institutional clients and individual investors worldwide.
Funding: A total of 4 funding rounds, with a total amount of $628 million. Major investors include Distributed Global, Tiger Global, Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Sequoia China, and others.
Babel Finance was established in 2018 and is a global crypto financial institution dedicated to providing professional crypto financial services to high-net-worth individuals and institutional clients worldwide. Its services include cryptocurrency lending, asset management, prime brokerage, private banking, mining services, and investment.
Funding: A total of 5 funding rounds, with a total amount of $120 million. Major investors include Dragonfly, BAI Capital, Sequoia China, Circle Ventures, and others.
3. BitMEX (Token: BMEX)
BitMEX was founded in 2014 and is one of the largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges in the world, characterized by deep liquidity and a professional trading dashboard. In 2016, BitMEX created and launched perpetual leveraged swap contracts on Bitcoin, allowing traders to trade Bitcoin futures with leverage of up to 100 times, with no expiration date. This product helped BitMEX become one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges by trading volume.
Market Cap: Fully diluted market cap is $312,819,736
Funding: Not disclosed
4. Hex Trust
Hex Trust was founded in 2018 and is a licensed and insured provider of bank-grade digital asset custody. Through its proprietary platform Hex Safe, Hex Trust provides custody, DeFi, brokerage, and financing solutions for financial institutions, digital asset organizations, enterprises, and private clients. Hex Trust has offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Italy, and Vietnam.
Funding: A total of 2 funding rounds, with a total amount of $94 million. Major investors include Animoca Brands, HashKey Capital, Protocol Labs, Distributed Global, Wintermute, and others.
5. CoinFLEX (Token: FLEX)
CoinFLEX was founded in 2019 and provides a platform for institutional and retail investors to earn and trade cryptocurrencies. CoinFLEX's innovative solutions, such as flexUSD (an interest-earning stablecoin) and AMM+ (a capital-efficient automated market maker), connect investors with the crypto market through intuitive yield products. CoinFLEX also operates a BCH sidechain SmartBCH using Tendermint for consensus.
Market Cap: $111,012,771
Funding: A total of 3 funding rounds, with a total amount of $11.25 million. Major investors include Dragonfly, Distributed Global, Polychain, NGC Capital, and others.
HashKey Group was established in 2018 and is an end-to-end digital asset financial services group in Asia, providing new investment opportunities and solutions for institutions, family offices, funds, and professional investors in the digital asset and blockchain ecosystem. The group offers a complete ecosystem across the digital asset space, from venture capital to custody, technology, and trading. The group operates in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan and has established partnerships with fintech and blockchain solution providers, academic institutions, and associations.
Its projects include the multi-chain DID wallet HashKey Me, the Web3 identity data aggregator HashKey DID, and HashKey Capital, which focuses on blockchain investment.
Funding: A total of 1 funding round, amount undisclosed, with investors including SNZ Capital and UVA.
7. New Huo Tech
New Huo Tech (formerly Huobi Tech) is a publicly listed company in Hong Kong, stock code 1611.HK, with co-founder Du Jun serving as CEO. Based on compliance and security, New Huo Tech aims to lead the compliant development of digital assets and create inclusive value for society using Web 3.0 technology. By building a blockchain and virtual asset ecosystem, New Huo Tech aims to become a one-stop virtual asset service platform that is compliant and secure.
Funding: Listed
Skynet Trading was established in 2017 and is a trading and investment company in the digital asset market. It has invested in nearly 20 projects, including Secret Network, zkLink, Clearpool, and others.
Funding: Not disclosed
DeFi
9. Linear Finance (Token: LINA)
Linear Finance was established in 2020 and is a cross-chain compatible synthetic asset protocol on the BNB Chain, allowing users to gain synthetic risk exposure to various assets, including cryptocurrencies, commodities, and market indices.
Market Cap: $39,324,25
Funding: A total of 2 funding rounds, with a total amount of $1.8 million. Major investors include Huobi Ventures, NGC Capital, Hashed, and others.
10. MANTRA (Token: OM)
MANTRA (formerly MANTRA DAO) was established in 2020 and is a vertically integrated and compliant blockchain ecosystem. The MANTRA OMniverse includes MANTRA Nodes: 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.
MANTRA is currently live on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Polygon.
Market Cap: $27,363,027
Funding: A total of 1 funding round, amount undisclosed, with major investors including LD Capital, Waterdrop Capital, GenBlock Capital, and others.
11. Wombat Exchange (Token: WOM)
Wombat Exchange was established in 2021 and is a multi-chain stablecoin exchange with open liquidity pools, low slippage, and single-sided staking.
Market Cap: $7,187,178
Funding: A total of 2 funding rounds, with a total amount of $5.2 million. Major investors include Shima Capital, Jump Crypto, Wormhole, and others.
NFT
12. Ucollex
Ucollex was established in 2021 and focuses on an NFT platform for art and pop culture collectibles. The platform does not require buyers to have a digital wallet and offers exclusive content, artist interviews, 3D art, and virtual reality experiences.
Funding: A total of 1 funding round, with a total amount of $10 million, co-led by Animoca Brands and MCP Asset Management's MCP IPX One Fund.
13. BNV.ME
BNV.ME was established in 2021 and is a fashion NFT sales platform that brings fashion into Web3.0 through 3D product creation, NFT sales, and future wearability. BNV aims to be the gateway for fashion brands and designers to enter the virtual world.
Funding: A total of 1 funding round, with a total amount of $4 million, with major investors including Animoca Brands, Sparkle Ventures, ArkStream Capital, and others.
14. MADworld (Token: UMAD)
MADworld was established in 2021 and provides an NFT origin platform and NFT marketplace that uses blockchain technology to protect artists, artworks, creators, and content entering the multiverse. MADworld supports NFT minting to verify the ownership and provenance of physical art, collectibles, and products, as well as original content developed from live concerts, sports events, artist duels, and other creative expressions. MADworld aims to give creators full control over their NFT strategies, supporting them by maximizing their intellectual property revenue and impact permanently.
Market Cap: $4,150,619
Funding: A total of 1 funding round, with a total amount of $6 million, with major investors including Animoca Brands, Master Ventures, Avatar Ventures, Chiron Partners, and others.
Gaming / Metaverse
15. Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands was founded by Yat Siu in 2014 and is a Web3 gaming software company and venture capital firm, with a portfolio of over 380, making it one of the giants in blockchain game investment.
Animoca Brands aims to provide digital property rights to global gamers and internet users, creating a new asset class, an economy for earning through gaming, and a fairer digital framework, contributing to the construction of an open metaverse. Its subsidiaries include The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, and others.
Funding: A total of 10 funding rounds, with a total amount of $758 million. Major investors include Sequoia China, Liberty City Ventures, Dragonfly, 10T Holdings, HashKey Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Huobi Ventures, and others.
16. The Sandbox (Token: SAND)
The Sandbox was established in 2012 and is one of the leading projects in the metaverse concept. It is a decentralized, community-driven gaming ecosystem where creators can share voxel assets and gaming experiences on Ethereum and monetize them.
Market Cap: $1,205,666,592
Funding: A total of 2 funding rounds, with a total amount of $95.1 million. Major investors include SoftBank Vision Fund, Animoca Brands, Blue Pool Capital, Polygon Labs, Liberty City Ventures, Samsung Next, and others.
17. MOBOX (Token: MBOX)
MOBOX was established in 2020 and is a gaming metaverse on the BNB Chain that combines automatically optimized DeFi yield mining with gaming NFTs to create a GameFi metaverse called MOMOverse.
Market Cap: $104,618,934
Funding: A total of 2 funding rounds, with funding amounts undisclosed, with investors including Animoca Brands and Binance Labs.
18. Kingdomverse (Token: KING)
Kingdomverse is a mobile gaming metaverse, an ecosystem project of the Ethereum NFT layer-2 scaling solution Immutable X, consisting of various mobile games that connect through a dynamic open-world mobile metaverse, NFTs, and tokens, creating a gamified social hub for mobile gamers to socialize, form guilds, build their own kingdoms, and even battle and conquer other lands.
Funding: A total of 1 funding round, with a total amount of $3.6 million.
Infrastructure
19. DTTD
DTTD was established in 2021 and is a social wallet for NFTs, building a set of services and tools for crypto natives, crypto newcomers, businesses, and anyone with internet access to manage all their NFTs in one place.
Funding: A total of 1 funding round, with a total amount of $2 million, funded by Animoca Brands.
Tools
20. Sprout
Sprout was established in 2019 and provides equity and token management solutions to help companies manage stocks, employee stock option plans (ESOP), tokens, fundraising, and investors in real-time on one platform, enabling teams to design, launch, and track stock options and token vesting. Sprout's Folium product allows organizations to track and manage all relevant wallet transactions and token investments on any blockchain.
Funding: A total of 2 funding rounds, with a total amount of $3 million. Major investors include Sequoia India, Old Fashion Research, and others.
Active Web3 Investment Institutions in Hong Kong
In addition to the 20 local crypto projects mentioned above, there are also active Web3 investment institutions in Hong Kong, such as HashKey Capital, EVG, Alliance DAO, Newman Capital, Master Ventures, Antalpha Ventures, and others.
Among them, HashKey Capital, established in 2018, has made a total of 219 investments, with 55 made in the past year, ranking among the top 5 most active investment institutions in Web3 in the past year. Its investment areas mainly cover infrastructure, DeFi, CeFi, and others. Representative projects include Animoca Brands, Aztec Network, Celestia, Blockdaemon, Mina, and others.
Similarly, Spartan Group, also established in 2018, is very active, having made a total of 151 investments, with 49 made in the past year, mainly covering DeFi, infrastructure, gaming, and other areas. Representative projects include Animoca Brands, BitDAO, Celestia, ConsenSys, Polygon, Sui, and others.
Alliance DAO, established in 2020, has invested in 112 portfolios, including Aztec Network, STEPN, Ribbon Finance, and 1inch Network.
