Hong Kong monetary authorities have introduced new guidelines to broaden the scope of product choices, permitting the mixing of crypto margin financing and perpetual contracts into the native digital belongings market.
Hong Kong Approves Crypto Margin Financing, Perps
On Wednesday, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Fee (SFC) unveiled a framework for licensed firms that present digital asset dealing providers (VA brokers) to supply digital asset financing.
In keeping with the SFC’s round, the monetary watchdog will allow VA brokers to increase credit score to margin purchasers with robust credit score profiles and adequate securities collateral, below Pillar P of its Entry, Safeguards, Merchandise, Infrastructure and Relationships (ASPIRe) roadmap.
It will permit eligible margin purchasers to “enhance their participation in VA buying and selling, which might improve the liquidity of Hong Kong’s VA market. On the identical time, this may additionally facilitate the event of VA financing in a risk-controlled surroundings.”
Underneath the brand new steerage, solely the 2 main cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), can be eligible as VA collateral. The regulator additionally launched a high-level framework for licensed digital asset buying and selling platforms to supply crypto perpetual contracts to skilled traders.
“Underneath the ASPIRe roadmap, Pillar P displays the SFC’s dedication to increasing the scope of product choices, together with Perps. This initiative goals to deepen market liquidity, broaden danger administration instruments for traders, and additional strengthen Hong Kong’s place as a number one world digital asset hub,” the watchdog affirmed.
The SFC emphasised that the introduction of Perps will convey new alternatives to the market, however famous that it additionally carries “a variety of dangers which can be distinct from these related to conventional futures or spot buying and selling of digital belongings.”
Subsequently, the framework requires platform operators to have strong administration measures and clear processes governing valuation, margining, collateralization, and liquidation administration.
Hong Kong Digital Panorama In ‘Defining Stage’
Talking at Consensus Hong Kong 2026 on Wednesday, Eric Yip, SFC’s Govt Director of Intermediaries, shared his views on the watchdog’s regulatory enhancements for the subsequent section of Hong Kong’s crypto belongings ecosystem.
Yip affirmed that Hong Kong’s crypto asset improvement has entered a “defining stage, formed by the SFC’s ASPIRe roadmap that outlines a future-proof regulatory framework geared toward deepening market high quality, resilience, and world competitiveness.”
He emphasised this 12 months’s deal with liquidity, “cultivating market depth, strengthening worth discovery, and constructing investor confidence via a strategic mix of expanded entry and accountable product innovation.”
As the chief defined, the SFC is increasing the town’s crypto product suite below Pillar P whereas sustaining regulatory guardrails aligned with conventional monetary market requirements.
Notably, Yip highlighted the SFC’s greenlight of crypto margin financing, which can be anchored to the prevailing securities margin financing framework. He famous that it’ll present clarification on the usage of crypto belongings as collateral, “enabling accountable leverage that helps liquidity with out undermining monetary stability.”
As well as, he additionally outlined the brand new high-level framework for leveraged perpetual contracts for skilled traders, which units out a principles-based mannequin.
Discussing the way to bridge innovation and regulatory readability, he pointed to the upcoming Digital Asset Accelerator to be arrange below Pillar Re, which is able to function a structured communication channel between the regulatory company and business innovators.
He concluded that “liquidity doesn’t emerge organically; it should be cultivated via openness, robust governance, and a purposeful regulatory design. By way of focused entry reforms, product growth, and structured innovation assist, Hong Kong is well-positioned to develop into a number one world digital belongings centre the place liquidity thrives on a basis of integrity, resilience, and worldwide cooperation.”
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