Hong Kong is positioning itself as crypto’s global connector, says lawmaker Johnny Ng

Johnny Ng isn’t playing the zero-sum game that’s consuming crypto politics elsewhere. While regulators in Washington, Beijing, and other Asian capitals are drawing battle lines, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council representative sees something bigger: building the connective tissue between markets, technologies, and jurisdictions that rarely move in sync.

Representing Hong Kong’s technology sector in the city’s parliament, Ng has emerged as one of the most vocal advocates for Web3 and digital assets in the region. His approach isn’t about picking winners or creating regulatory moats—it’s about positioning Hong Kong as the bridge between East and West, between traditional finance and crypto-native innovation.

“Crypto and Web3 are really highly linked with the traditional financial system,” Ng explained during an interview at his legislative office. This perspective shapes everything he’s working on in Hong Kong.

The city’s existing strengths form the foundation of his vision: easily understood common law, English language courts, free capital flows, and a dense concentration of global banks, asset managers, lawyers, and auditors. “Hong Kong is one of the largest international finance centers,” he noted, arguing that this foundation allows the city to build a crypto hub that is “safe, secure and moving along the way.”

But Ng’s ambitions extend beyond Hong Kong’s borders. He repeatedly emphasizes the Greater Bay Area initiative, which aims to increase trade and integration among Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Macau. While Shenzhen dominates as the world’s workshop with its electronics manufacturing prowess, Ng sees Hong Kong’s role differently.

“We don’t need to replicate Shenzhen or Guangzhou’s engineering culture,” he explained. “We need to connect to it.” Hong Kong brings common law and open capital markets. Mainland cities bring scale, manufacturing depth, and a young, technically skilled workforce. “In Shenzhen, the average age of the people is really young, under 30,” Ng said, describing a city of engineers and technologists with the capacity to turn ideas into products.

“Hong Kong can be a bridge,” he continued, explaining how capital, legal structure, and global market access can link up with mainland innovation. “We can think something, and then we realize something by their human capital.”

Ng even points to crypto history to make his case. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin was frequently in Zhuhai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong during Ethereum’s early years. The region, Ng argues, has long been fertile ground for protocol-level experimentation. What Hong Kong adds is regulatory clarity and financial credibility.

This bridge-building mindset also shapes Ng’s global outlook. In 2023, during a period of aggressive enforcement actions against crypto companies by U.S. regulators, Ng made international headlines by publicly inviting Coinbase and other exchanges to consider Hong Kong.

“I hereby offer an invitation to welcome all global virtual asset trading operators including @coinbase to come to HK for application of official trading platforms and further development plans,” he tweeted at the time.

While many interpreted this as competitive signaling, Ng now frames it differently. “I’m not going to see the competition with any countries,” he said. “Crypto cannot be easily divided by country or economy. It is one world.”

Rather than rivalry, Ng argues that the industry needs regulatory coordination and predictability across jurisdictions. “I want the Hong Kong government to make more connections with different jurisdictions, the governing bodies together,” he said, pointing to the need for clearer standards that allow crypto to link more directly with real-world economic activity.

As the Legislative Council reconvenes for another session, Ng is focused on the next phase: plumbing. Custody and OTC regulations are coming this year, along with potential changes that could allow higher-volume trading for professional investors.

He also sees convergence coming from another direction: artificial intelligence. Hong Kong, he argues, occupies a unique position, able to work with both Western and Chinese datasets and become a place where AI companies from around the world collaborate.

For Ng, Hong Kong’s bet isn’t that it can outbuild or outmuscle other crypto or AI hubs. It’s that, by staying open, regulated, and connected, it can sit at the center of a system that is still very much under construction.

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