Golden Financial Reporter Jessy
Change is hidden in the smallest things.
Jack (pseudonym), who is engaged in product operations, switched jobs from a traditional currency exchange to a compliant exchange that is applying for a license in Hong Kong this year. He discovered that during a plan writing process, the word "market" in "in different markets" in the document was required to be changed to "jurisdiction".
A change in wording reflects the difference between traditional currency exchanges and Hong Kong compliance exchanges when facing the public. Image: The most important thing for traditional currency exchanges is to be user-oriented, while a Hong Kong compliance exchange is most concerned about "compliance" and compliance with regulations.
Similarly, Jack found that the company never used the "rocket" pattern in content promotion. When employees communicated with each other on communication software, Nor will similar emoticons be used. Because similar patterns are considered to encourage trading, they are suspected of guiding market sentiment.
It has been more than a year since Hong Kong issued the "Policy Declaration on the Development of Virtual Assets in Hong Kong" in November 2022. Practitioners like Jack who are rooted in Hong Kong's Web3 ecological construction face challenges not only in adapting themselves to how to work under the regulatory framework, but also in how to deal with entrepreneurial requirements, how to adapt to Hong Kong's local culture, etc...
The currency circle is different from Hong Kong Web3
Jack feels that the current job is different from other currency circles Comparing work, the biggest difference is that everyone in the organization has to adapt to "compliance."
Working under a compliance framework is like dancing with shackles. Jack was seriously "stuck" when writing copywriting, "Did I put another rocket in there?". Previously, he was often praised for his good copywriting ideas.
Greta, the chief marketing officer of VDX Exchange, summarized that she is currently engaged in a "Web3+ investment bank" job. Greta, who has been working in the currency circle for many years, has been broken with the thinking she had developed in the currency circle. When working in the traditional currency circle, when a hot spot comes out, the first thing people in the industry think of is how to make a hundred times more money through this hot spot. As a practitioner, what I think about is how to use small money to chase this hot spot.
Now, when working in an exchange that is applying for a compliance license, she will immediately think of the risks behind this hot spot, as a trader So how to protect the security of users’ assets.
Previously working in a traditional exchange in the currency circle, Greta held events for C-end users. At that time, she was considering how to maximize the realization of the event through an event. User conversion. But now, it is aimed more at B-end users. To communicate to them, it is necessary to show more business compliance, strategic thinking for long-term development, etc.
Now, Jack would define himself as a financial person. He feels that the daily work process is not much different from that of traditional financial institutions. He deals with regulatory authorities on a daily basis. Most of the partners are traditional funds, banks, etc. He needs to supplement his financial and legal knowledge related to traditional finance in his spare time, and is even preparing for the license exam.
In life, there are many things that need to be adapted to. The city of Hong Kong still gives Jack a relatively depressing feeling. He often feels depressed when walking on the street. He will think of what his mother described to him when he went to Hong Kong as a child: "There are many high-rise buildings in Hong Kong. When you look up, you can see the hats on the buildings." "All dropped." Jack felt that he could laugh on the streets of Shanghai and Beijing, but he was embarrassed to laugh on the streets of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s housing prices are high and the pressure to survive is high. Tony, the founder of NFTCHINA.HK, observed that there is still a big difference in the external status of mainlanders and Hong Kong people. Hong Kong people work very hard, not only at work, but also in all aspects of life, because locals understand that "hands stop and words stop."
What still needs to be adapted is the local culture and language. Greta, who has been in Hong Kong for nearly a year, feels that she has only 50% integrated into the local society in Hong Kong. 50% of integration is not having time to learn the local culture of Hong Kong. For example, in the past, when working in Mainland China, business correspondence would end with a common expression such as "Best wishes to Shang Qi", but in the world of Traditional Chinese, this expression would not be used. Therefore, every written letter used to communicate with local customers in Hong Kong needs to be revised by local colleagues in Hong Kong.
Furthermore, the majority of business communication terms in Hong Kong are Cantonese. Greta often meets local customers in Hong Kong with colleagues in charge of business. At present, she can basically understand I understand common terms used in business situations, but it’s still difficult to speak them myself.
When an industry moves from a state of barbaric growth to order and standardization, people in the industry must adapt to the new rules. Dancing with shackles will be the norm. Greta said that VDX is in the sensitive period of applying for a license, so everything the organization speaks to the outside world needs to be reviewed by colleagues in the compliance department before being released.
Riding the storm
Tony’s company passed the application and settled in the Science Park, and Tony went I checked the annual report of the company opposite my own company and found that the company's quarterly revenue was tens of billions of dollars. In the park, there are also many listed companies and outstanding mainland enterprises, such as Huawei, China Mobile, Qi Anxin, CATL, etc. This makes Tony feel honored to be able to work with so many excellent companies.
When starting a business in Hong Kong this year, Tony’s deepest feeling was that he and the company were stepping on the momentum. During the process of connecting with customers, Tony felt that parties A and B were now swapped. Tony no longer needed to introduce to his partners what he had done and how many users the platform had when meeting with them as before. At that time, such behavior was more of a self-promotion, but after working in Hong Kong for more than a year, Tony believed that he had now found his partner, and the two parties were discussing cooperation based on their recognition of NFTChina.hk's capabilities. Resources can be quickly linked together to achieve a common goal.
In the current cooperation, Tony will do research and judgment with the project parties. Both parties will write down the goals to be achieved for the cooperation in black and white, and then measure and match the goals that both parties want to achieve. resources owned.
This kind of cooperation was rare before the release of the "Declaration". Previously, in order to make a living, Tony would take the initiative to find some companies that needed their services but did not Party A understands Web3, and in the process of cooperation, the cost of "educating" the other party with Web3-related knowledge is also high.
Tony summed up the reason for such a change as having accumulated many years of experience in the industry and then seized the opportunity in Hong Kong. Tony's company launched a new RWA project after coming to Hong Kong to finance non-Web3 projects, use NFT to represent the rights and interests of investors, and receive dividends. From the perspective of the currency circle, this is not an innovative gameplay in the industry. But Tony believes that from the perspective of traditional finance, this is already innovative.
Similar to Tony's feelings as the founder of a project, Jack also feels that his current job is a state of entrepreneurship. He enjoyed the process of the project from 0 to 1 and gained enough sense of accomplishment. At different stages of the company's development, his responsibilities vary greatly. He has participated in the writing of legal documents, followed up on the product logic of the entire exchange, refined KYC processes, selected cooperative suppliers, etc., and technology The staff worked together to refine product details, and also participated in traffic conversion, KOL BD and other work. In this process, Jack needs to quickly learn new knowledge and become a comprehensive talent.
Joining an industry with policy support, rapid growth, and close to money, Jack felt that it would be difficult for him to return to the traditional Internet industry. Web3 changes quickly, you are exposed to new things every day, and you accumulate wealth quickly. Although the work pressure is high, your personal growth is also rapid.
Working overtime is normal. I start working at eight o'clock every day and work non-stop until ten o'clock in the evening. I made an appointment for a phone interview at 8pm on a weekday. During the call, Jack told me that he was eating his dinner: cookies from his colleagues.
"How can you pretend to be so many things in this year?" Jack sighed when recalling his 2023.
Learn to slow down under the policy of long-termism
Looking back on Hong Kong over the past year Regulatory trends include approving exchange licenses, supervising cryptocurrency exchanges, and launching a digital Hong Kong dollar pilot plan.
There are not many clear policies on the surface, but the government's position has been clearly stated. And under this storm, money and people really poured into Hong Kong. The number of conferences held, the influx of Web3 talents, and the number of web3 companies established in Hong Kong are all the highest in previous years. Those who caught this wave did taste the sweetness.
Tony not only opened up new business for the company, but also received some awards from the government level. When I was interviewed and asked what the company had done this year, he first detailed to me the official websites where the project had been listed and some government-level awards it had received. In his view, these awards are a symbol of recognition from the government for what he has done. In the past, he could only treat Tibet as a business in mainland China.
After working in Hong Kong for a year and feeling the stability of the policy, Tony felt that he could regard Web3 entrepreneurship as his career. Although he also worked more than ten hours a day, Tony felt that he was using tactical diligence to cover up strategic laziness. When working in Hong Kong, Tony was able to deduce what might happen at every step of project development, the income situation, etc. during the sand table deduction stage.
In life, Tony, who moved from Beijing to Hong Kong, has become proficient in using Cantonese in daily life. Only at this moment does he feel that he has truly integrated into Hong Kong society. . In 2016, he passed the Hong Kong Talent Settlement Program and came to work in Hong Kong. During this period, he also started a business in Shenzhen. Next year, after he has been in Hong Kong for seven years, he will get a Hong Kong permanent resident identity card.
Only when he is accepted by this city in his life can his life in Hong Kong truly stretch. In the past few years, when he spoke Mandarin with locals, or when someone noticed that his Cantonese was poor, the local service staff would politely switch to Mandarin to communicate with him without exchanging too many pleasantries. But now when he communicates with local people in Cantonese, no one will think that his Cantonese is bad, and merchants will no longer treat him just as a customer, but as a neighbor who will chat with him about daily life.
Tony also took his children to a school in Hong Kong. Originally, Tony wanted to wait until his child entered junior high school before arranging for him to study in Hong Kong. But as he has established a foothold in Hong Kong, this plan has been advanced.
Everything seems to have unlimited hope, and in anticipation, the bull market will also come. The NFT track where Tony's entrepreneurial project is located has not yet been clearly regulated, and what is currently being felt is the dividends brought by the wind. This dividend is the double benefit of the policy plus the bull market.
But Jack, who is in a compliant exchange, has some different feelings. He feels that the Hong Kong government will gradually become more conservative as supervision begins in the second half of this year. and caution. In his opinion, Hong Kong's supervision in the first half of the year was a bold attempt and very supportive.
This may be because Hong Kong’s local exchange JPEX is involved in “financial fraud”, or it may be because Hong Kong has learned some regulatory experience from the United States and other places. But for a commercial organization, the process of waiting for the policy boots to be implemented needs to bear high operating costs. This process is actually difficult.
For example, although the two licensed exchanges have opened retail businesses, they only offer BTC and ETH for retail trading. Listing of currencies on exchanges requires review and approval by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. For the protection of investors, the China Securities Regulatory Commission is still very cautious.
But it is precisely because of this caution that Jack has some thoughts: Is there a place more suitable for the development of the encryption industry than Hong Kong?
After all, compliance has increasingly become the main theme of exchange development. It is expected that exchanges will gain a foothold in Hong Kong and gradually expand into more overseas compliance markets. Jack feels that he will have more development opportunities in the process of overseas expansion, and may be able to join a more centralized exchange. A cooler job. After all, he had a dream of "decentralization" when he chose to enter the Web3 industry.
Tony also feels that after a year of practice and observation, his initial estimate of the development process of Web3 in Hong Kong was still optimistic. Hong Kong has its own rhythm. Will be transferred for capital or regulatory purposes. Hong Kong will actually do things more solidly, but the efficiency is not very high. Policies are being advanced with a long-term thinking.
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