Investors in Hong Kong Face Ambiguity in Terms of Cryptocurrency Regulations and Bitcoin Futures

It seems that regulatory ambiguity in Hong Kong continues to play a negative role for investors in the cryptocurrency market. The official regulatory agency does not provide clarity on this issues. The information was released by the South China Morning Post on November 26.

Although there have been different positive comments regarding blockchain technology and the fintech industry, the regulatory framework is not clear about it. Clearly, Hong Kong did not ban virtual currencies or ICOs as China did, however, it was not able to improve the situation for these companies in the country.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has recently proposed a ‘sandbox’ for crypto exchanges. The SFC explained that the new approach would not apply to operators that trade digital assets considered futures derivatives contracts. The approach has yet to be implemented and enforced, but it seems that once it is in place it will not be governing exchanges that deal with cryptocurrency-related futures contracts and derivatives. Are going to be these products and services unregulated?

If there is a specific case of fraud or manipulation in the market performed by these exchanges, affected investors would not be able to seek SFC’s help.

This is also related to what happened with the cryptocurrency exchange OKEx that closed prematurely Bitcoin Cash (BCH) contracts and generated more than $400 million dollars’ losses to investors. If Hong Kong’s law is applied to that case, the decision taken by OKEx was not illegal.

There were other complains to the crypto exchange. For example, the trading firm Amber AI accused the exchange of manipulating the cryptocurrency market liquidating the BCH futures. This is not the first time that OKEx is involved in such a situation in the market. Back on September 12, the founder of the OKEx exchange, Star Xu, was accused of being involved in a fraudulent scheme related to the WFEE Coin.

Countries all over the world are starting to develop regulatory frameworks to related to virtual currencies. Malta is one of the clearest examples of how proper regulations have a positive effect on the market. There are several companies on the island that have settled their operations there.