Hong Kong issues nine digital asset platform licenses

Hong Kong’s financial secretary Paul Chan on Wednesday said the city’s regulators have issued nine digital asset platform licenses, adding that more approvals are in the pipeline.The government is also working to advance the regulation of stable coin, Chan told Coindesk’s Consensus Hong Kong 2025 conference.Hong Kong first drew up a plan to become a virtual asset hub in 2022 – an effort that followed Beijing’s sweeping ban on all crypto transactions in mainland China the previous year.It has since launched the first spot crypto exchange-traded funds in Asia as well as other initiatives.Singapore and Dubai are also aiming to become global hubs for virtual assets.The price of bitcoin more than doubled last year. It hit an all time high of $109,071 on January 20 this year, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration but has since pulled back to stand around $96,000.