Hong Kong bans retail Stablecoin Investments 

Finally, Hong Kong’s SFC body issues 7 main points to keep suspicious activities away from the crypto sector under the jurisdiction of the country.

On 24 May 2023, The Securities & Futures Commission of Hong Kong (SFC) issued guidelines for a new crypto regulation system.

The SFC agency mentioned 7 main points, where they planned to allow retail crypto investment but under a very strict environment.

First of all, no crypto firms will be allowed to provide crypto lending services. In short, crypto interest borrow/loan-like services providers (e.g. Nexo-like services) will not be allowed to provide services in the country.

The second most important rule by the SFC agency is the ban on stablecoins. No retail crypto investors can purchase stablecoin. In short, these people will be restricted to trading crypto assets in fiat pairs. But here this rule is not permanent & in the next phase, they may bring new rules. 

A third most important rule is only trading of non-security crypto tokens will be allowed to trade in the country but before the listing, there should be a clean history over the last 12 months, behind the crypto token project.

The fourth important rule is the token index system. All the tokens purchased by retail investors need to be included in the two major indexes, which is the minimum requirement, so the following tokens are the tokens that may be listed in the first batch of Hong Kong compliance exchanges.

All the rest of the key points in the SFC’s crypto regulation consultation will prohibit the crypto firm from suspicious or intentional bad activities.

In the crypto Twitter community, many people criticised Hong Securities regulatory body over such high strict rules but many people welcomed the SFC’s proposal as a new relief for retail investors, as retail crypto trading was banned by the Hong Kong government. 

Read also: Luna classic (Lunc) showing bullish signs ahead CosmWasm upgrade