The Hong Kong government moves toward banning cryptocurrency exchanges to non-professional investors. According to an announcement, the government plans to oblige all local cryptocurrency exchanges to receive a license from the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).
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Moreover, as per government proposals, the licensed exchanges will only be allowed to professional investors. The government will proceed to prepare the amendment bill based on the consultation conclusions, with a view to introducing the amendment bill into the Legislative Council in the 2021-22 legislative session.
As iHodl earlier reported, the regulatory rules proposed by Hong Kong's Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) could encourage not only financial crimes, but also trigger retail investors' outflow onto the gray digital platform, warns the industry body Global Digital Finance (GDF) which represents such cryptocurrency exchanges as Coinbase, Huobi, BitMEX, and OKCoin.
The GDF's Advisory Council Chairman, Malcolm Wright, emphasized that restricting crypto trading to professional investors only "is different to what we have seen in other jurisdictions."
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