Changpeng Zhao told a Binance Life book club audience in Hong Kong on Wednesday that the city and Web3 make a “powerful combination,” framing it as one of several jurisdictions positioned to gain from friendlier crypto policy.
The remarks, made at a meetup for readers of Zhao’s memoir “Freedom of Money” at Exchange Square in Central. He shared his views on Hong Kong’s Web3 potential, RWA tokenization, and the growth of decentralized exchanges.
Hong Kong’s edge, in CZ’s telling
Zhao pointed to fintech talent, mainland-to-Hong-Kong talent mobility, and institutional connectivity as the city’s core advantages. He named Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and the US alongside Hong Kong as the markets he expects to benefit most from supportive digital-asset policy. The broader CZ ASEAN crypto passporting discussion also highlights how regulatory coordination and cross-border frameworks could make it easier for crypto businesses to operate across multiple Southeast Asian markets.
Zhao also flagged a gap that gets left out of most coverage of these remarks: Hong Kong’s power and data-center infrastructure, he said, “is not particularly strong” relative to those advantages, a caveat that complicates the otherwise bullish framing.
The RWA and stablecoin case
Zhao said real-world-asset tokenization has outpaced his own prior expectations, specifically on securities. His reasoning: tokenized assets can reach investors without the account-opening thresholds, trading-hour limits, and geographic restrictions that structure traditional markets. He also described stablecoins as fiat currency’s own on-chain RWA form, and said more countries could eventually tokenize their national currencies.
Hong Kong’s regulator has been building toward that case independent of Zhao’s remarks. The SFC has an active tokenized-product and secondary-trading framework in motion through 2026, and coverage of the meetup cited a running count of authorized tokenized products, though that specific figure wasn’t independently confirmed against a primary SFC filing for this piece.
DEXs, and the number behind the claim
Zhao traced decentralized exchanges’ evolution “from Uniswap and PancakeSwap to Hyperliquid” over roughly eight years, arguing the infrastructure and user base have matured enough that further US regulatory easing on decentralized products could accelerate DEX and broader crypto growth. The CZ Hyperliquid push also reflects his view that growing institutional and regulatory acceptance could further strengthen decentralized trading platforms.
That claim has a real number behind it. DEX spot trading volume reached 24.14% of tracked centralized-exchange spot volume in July, a record, per data compiled from DefiLlama’s top 30 decentralized exchanges weighed against the largest centralized platforms.
Whether Hong Kong, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and the US actually pull ahead on RWA and DEX growth the way Zhao expects will depend on how far the policy easing he’s counting on actually goes, and on whether Hong Kong’s infrastructure gap, gets closed before the advantage he’s describing shows up in the numbers the way July’s DEX data already has.
Disclaimer: Cryip's content is strictly for educational and informational purposes and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Cryptocurrency involves significant risk, and readers assume full responsibility for their own financial decisions. Asset references are never endorsements.
To make complex crypto topics accessible to readers at all experience levels, our team uses AI tools strictly to refine language, correct grammar, and simplify terminology. AI is never used to draft facts, source information, or form conclusions. Every article is fact-checked and approved by a human editor before publication. Read our full AI Use & Content Policy.
