The task force is being chaired by Financial Secretary Paul Chan and comprises 15 non-official members from relevant sectors and key government officials along with financial regulators will participate. Animoca Brands chairman Yat Siu announced on Monday that he would be joining the task force.

"The blockchain technology that underpins crypto is secure, transparent, low cost and has the potential to solve many difficult problems in finance, business operations and trade," Chan said in the press release.

The government said it would designate $6.4 million (HK$50 million) in February to develop its Web3 ecosystem and also announced its plan to set up the Web3 task force then.

UPDATE (July 3, 2023, 12:42 UTC): Adds to paragraph five that the Web3 task force was first announced in February.

Regulations Crypto Hong Kong

Camomile Shumba

Camomile Shumba is a CoinDesk regulatory reporter based in the UK. Previously, Shumba interned at Business Insider and Bloomberg. Camomile has featured in Harpers Bazaar, Red, the BBC, Black Ballad, Journalism.co.uk, Cryptopolitan.com and South West Londoner. Shumba studied politics, philosophy and economics as a combined degree at the University of East Anglia before doing a postgraduate degree in multimedia journalism. While she did her undergraduate degree she had an award-winning radio show on making a difference. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.