Hong Kong University Vice President Pushes “Regulation as a Service” to Power Web3 Leadership

During an event organized jointly by New Fire Technology, Avenir Group, and Techub News, Professor Wang Yang, the Vice President of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) presented a radical vision of regulations. He encouraged Hong Kong to take regulation as a service, and not as a constraint. The idea reinvents the concept of regulatory frameworks as innovations, enabling the expansion of startups under transparent and adaptable management.

Web3 Regulation as a Service

The suggested RaaS model promotes the cooperation between innovators and regulators. It does not impose strict measures but rather takes compliance as a collaborative effort. Wang stressed the fact that the power of Hong Kong is in the transparent supervision and adaptive policies. This, he opined, made the city a Web3 capital- rivalling Singapore and Switzerland. His style is a trend of making governance an enabling service to facilitate economic competitiveness and investor confidence.

The regulation development in Hong Kong supports the idea presented by Wang. This system imposes 98% cold storage, multi-layered security, as well as the full AML compliance, which will guarantee the transparency of the exchange following the events such as the Bybit hack in early 2025. These regulations will establish a secure nature of traders and institutions going into the crypto sector in Hong Kong.

Pilot Program Funding 2.0 and Policy Declaration 2.0.

In May of 2025, the Digital Asset Development Policy Declaration 2.0 was published, which reinforced the Web3 ecosystem of the city. It has initiated a pilot grant program of HK 500,000 on blockchain projects through the LEAP framework of Cyberport- Legal streamlining, Ecosystem growth, Application focus, and People development. Projects backed comprise real-world assets tokenization, tools of stablecoins, digitizing green bonds. This program shows how Hong Kong has been planning in the long run to incorporate blockchain in its physical economy.

Hong Kong In August 2025, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) led the passing of its Stablecoin Ordinance. The legislation establishes a 1:1 reserve coverage, AML verification that is FATF-compliant, and auditing in real time. It renders Hong Kong one of the rare regions where stablecoins regulation is evident. The ordinance creates accountability to the issuers that reduces risks such as de-pegging or funds abuse. Together with SFC regulation of trading platforms, the framework provides equal protection to the users and the innovators.

From Scepticism to Advocacy

Interestingly, Professor Wang was also a skeptic of blockchain at one time. On a 2012 visit to HKUST, he described Bitcoin as a financial illusion. He is now an HKU leader and AI researcher who believes in collaboration between academia and industry in order to develop a digital economy of Hong Kong.

The new framework of Hong Kong is in line with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Basel Committee on Banking Supervision standard. It will be able to lure international Web3 startups by ensuring regulatory clarity and support of innovation. The RaaS ideology may also affect the neighbouring markets such as Japan and South Korea which are revising their crypto supervision frameworks. The responses of the industry, such as those by @wublockchain12 and icomaki2, are positive regarding the prospects that the model has in transforming the process of governmental assistance to innovation.