Hong Kong Web3 Carnival: The Watershed for Web3 Entering the Implementation Stage

The message conveyed by the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival is already markedly different from industry discussions in previous years.

If the market had previously been repeatedly testing whether “Web3 has real value,” then this time, from speeches by Paul Chan, Charles Ho, to Vincent Ma, it’s clear that the focus of discussion has fundamentally shifted: Web3 is no longer a technical proposition that needs to be proven, but is entering an institutionalized and structured implementation phase.

More precisely, Hong Kong is not trying to build a “Web3 industry cluster,” but rather an operating system aimed at the next-generation financial system.

From “Asset Digitization” to “Financial Restructuring”

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan repeatedly emphasized the significance of “tokenization” in his speech, clearly stating that the types of assets included in this process have expanded from early crypto assets to currencies, bonds, real estate, and future income rights.

The key to this change is not in the form of technology, but in the underlying logic of the financial structure itself shifting.

In traditional financial systems, liquidity, divisibility, and participation thresholds of assets are often determined by centralized intermediaries; under the tokenization framework, these constraints are re-encoded as on-chain rules, allowing assets to be split, circulated, and settled through programmable mechanisms.

This signifies a more fundamental change: finance is no longer about “who owns the assets,” but about “how assets flow.”

In the past, finance involved a small number of people allocating assets; under the new framework, assets begin to flow with lower friction to a broader range of participants.

Therefore, the essence of tokenization is not “on-chain,” but a shift in the resource allocation mechanism of finance from “institution-led” to “rule-driven.”

This transition lays the groundwork for larger-scale financial innovation in the future.

AI’s Introduction: From Efficiency Tool to Economic Actor

If tokenization reshapes “assets,” then the introduction of artificial intelligence begins to reshape “participants.”

Vincent Ma, member of the Executive Committee of the China Financial Society and former Chairman of Beijing Financial Holdings Group, proposed the “DAE (Decentralized Agentic Economy)” framework, which offers a forward-looking explanatory path: in the future economic system, AI will no longer be just decision-support tools but will possess independent action capabilities as economic agents.

This judgment is based on three key premises:

AI Agents have continuous evolving decision-making abilities, capable of strategy selection in complex environments;

Blockchain provides their identity, accounts, and a verifiable execution environment;

Programmable currencies and smart contracts enable them to directly participate in value exchanges.

Under this framework, a fundamental change will occur in the financial system: transaction behaviors will no longer be entirely human-driven but will gradually shift toward a hybrid model of “machine participation and rule constraints.”

This not only means increased transaction efficiency but also a reconstruction of market operation logic. For example, in high-frequency trading, liquidity management, and cross-market coordination, the integration of AI Agents with on-chain infrastructure could significantly compress traditional intermediary layers.

This is why Paul Chan emphasized: “This intersection of interest (AI Agents), Web3, and artificial intelligence will change the ‘rules of the game’.”

Key Institutional Level: From “Exploration” to “Implementable”

A clear technological path does not automatically guarantee system deployment. The critical factor is institutional arrangements.

In this regard, the regulatory signals from the Securities and Futures Commission’s Intermediaries Department, represented by Executive Director Charles Ho, are relatively clear: Hong Kong is advancing its digital asset system from “policy statements” to “implementation frameworks.”

Over the past year, Hong Kong has achieved three key transitions:

Systematic expansion of regulatory scope—exchanges, custody, pledges, and derivatives are gradually incorporated into a unified system, providing a foundation for institutional participation;

Gradual opening of product layers—from tokenized funds to money market instruments, regulatory pathways are forming for replicable products;

Clarification of infrastructure directions—especially stablecoins, which are beginning to enter core policy focus.

The combined result is that Web3 in Hong Kong has moved from “discussable” to “implementable.”

Stability and Continuity: Hong Kong’s Differentiated Advantage

Globally, attitudes toward Web3 vary significantly across regions.

The U.S. frequently adjusts policies, leading to regulatory uncertainty; Europe emphasizes strict regulation, which somewhat constrains innovation.

In contrast, Hong Kong has chosen a different path:

Principle of “Same Risk, Same Regulation”

Gradual release of innovation through sandbox mechanisms

Maintaining policy continuity

Legislator Ronny Tong emphasized “stability and transparency” in his speech. On the surface, this is a principled statement, but in the current global regulatory environment, it actually constitutes a significant institutional advantage: when uncertainty becomes the norm, stability itself becomes a scarce resource.

This is especially critical for long-term capital and institutional participants.

From Industry Competition to Systemic Competition

Synthesizing these dimensions, Hong Kong is not promoting a single technology or industry, but rather constructing a systemic framework:

Asset digitization paths represented by RWA (Real-World Assets);

Settlement networks centered on stablecoins;

Economic actor reconstruction driven by AI Agents.

These three main lines are gradually coupling on the same infrastructure, ultimately pointing to who can define the operation mode of the next-generation financial system, rather than just who is doing Web3.

In this sense, Hong Kong’s role is shifting from participant to rule-maker.

When assets, rules, and participants all change simultaneously, the financial system often enters a phase of accelerated restructuring.

The current question may no longer be whether Web3 has long-term value, but how the new power structures will be redistributed in this systemic overhaul.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice. Markets are risky; invest cautiously.