Hong Kong won’t ban digital currencies but will educate public on risks via campaign

Yet as an open economy, city won’t mean tell investors what to buy and not buy

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People lining up outside a bitcoin ATM in Hong Kong. Photo: AP

Published: 8:22pm, 29 Jan 2018Updated: 10:51pm, 6 Feb 2018

The explosion of unregulated initial coin offerings (ICOs) and volatility in the price of virtual currencies is of concern to Hong Kong policymakers, who on Monday said it would not ban them, but would educate people about the risks of such investments.

The public education campaign would highlight that cryptocurrencies have fluctuated in price, are not backed by any physical commodity or the issuer, and are subjected to hacking risks.

It would be rolled out from March in MTR stations and print, digital and broadcast media, the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau said.

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The bureau is running the campaign together with the Investor Education Centre, a subsidiary of the Securities and Futures Commission.

But “in such an open economy [as Hong Kong], [we] will not tell investors what to buy and what not to buy,” Kelvin Wong Tin-yau, the centre’s chairman, said.

Last year, the value of the world’s biggest virtual currency bitcoin increased by 1,878 per cent before losing nearly half its value this month while ICOs – crowdsourced fundraising via virtual currencies, or cryptocurrencies, for specific products of services – raised between US$4 billion and US$7 billion.

Hong Kong won’t ban digital currencies but will educate public on risks via campaign

Yet as an open economy, city won’t mean tell investors what to buy and not buy

Hong Kong’s bitcoin businesses suffer after local bank accounts frozen

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