To achieve industry prosperity, some basic "hard work" must ultimately be done by someone.
Written by: Eric, Foresight News
"I would like to ask you, where else is more suitable besides Hong Kong?"
This is indeed a good question. Since the virtual asset declaration was issued in Hong Kong, there has always been a pessimistic voice towards Hong Kong's Web3. However, if you need to select a pivot that can establish a foothold in Asia and radiate to the world, for Chinese Web3 investment institutions, Hong Kong is the obvious choice compared to Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.
This dialogue took place during the recently concluded Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. Supported by the Ethereum Foundation, SNZ and ETHTao jointly launched the Hong Kong Ethereum Community Hub (hereinafter referred to as "Hub"), which held an opening ceremony at the same time, attended by many big names including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik, HashKey Group chairman and CEO Xiao Feng, Hong Kong legislator Kwok Ka Ki, and Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom.
The Hong Kong Ethereum Community Hub is an Ethereum community initiated by SNZ, aimed at providing a space for Ethereum ecosystem participants in Asia and around the world to exchange, discuss, and learn, to promote the application and development of Ethereum in various industries.
Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom also expressed in an interview, "I firmly believe that the next chapter of Ethereum will be written in Asia. Hong Kong has already established one of the world's most mature regulatory frameworks for digital assets. The stablecoin policy, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong's virtual asset licensing system, and local institutions' ongoing commitment to this market—these are not signals that require us to watch from a distance, but signals that call for immediate action."
When it comes to community, many people might feel a bit "allergic" to these two words. As an early supporter of Ethereum, what SNZ did at a time when the industry was generally confused was merely to create a "community," which puzzled me greatly. With a plethora of questions in mind, I spoke with the head of the Hub.
The "Ancient Ritual" of Web3
The first and most important question is, as mentioned above, why use such a seemingly ordinary organizational form.
"When I first joined SNZ, I also asked Mr. Shi (SNZ founder Gilles Shi) the same question, and I think my later thoughts can answer most people's doubts," said Henry, CBO of SNZ and one of the leaders in Hub operations.
In the early development of DeFi applications on Ethereum, SNZ helped many projects through similar forms. Around 2017 and 2018, SNZ set up a similar community organization called "Neutrino" in Changning, Shanghai, helping emerging projects disseminate within the community. One of SNZ's early investments, MakerDAO, benefited from this, gaining wide attention from the Asia-Pacific community and later becoming one of the key infrastructures in the DeFi field.
Henry has a deep understanding of this. Before formally entering the Web3 industry, his view of Web3 was "abnormal," and it was only through communicating with SNZ's managing partner and chief investment officer Gavin Wang in similar communities that he realized Web3 is actually a very "normal" industry. But the problem lies in the overwhelming noise; even traditional investment veterans like Henry cannot avoid being misled.
"The industry is very chaotic; often you cannot find the right people to communicate with." This so-called "chaotic" state is also determined by the nature of the Web3 industry. On one hand, Web3 is still in its early stages of development; on the other hand, the decentralized nature means many projects have the freedom to span the globe from birth, unaffected by geographic limitations as long as there is internet connectivity. Not everyone contributing to a project is within "the same company," so the existence of community is a subjective need and an objective requirement.
I resonate with this sentiment as well. Since the end of 2022, we have rarely seen any eye-catching products or concepts emerging in the Web3 industry, and the industry lacks transformative innovation. We can find thousands of reasons for this, but one core issue is: many insightful thoughts have been drowned out by massive noisy information like what Trump said, who is arguing with whom on X, etc. Some people have become too lazy to think, while those who want to think are troubled by how to filter information.
Technology internet parks born in Silicon Valley and Zhongguancun have adopted such forms of community in earlier years, and some have eventually nurtured incubators (e.g., Plug & Play), effectively promoting technology and industry development, while also giving rise to tech giants like Google and ByteDance.
Many speculate that prehistoric civilizations had developed to the point of interstellar travel but mysteriously vanished from Earth overnight. If after billions of years, physical communities, face-to-face conversations between people still firmly occupy an important position, it indicates that this phenomenon has inherent value.
Gathering is a Fire, Dispersing is a Sky Full of Stars
"The value and significance of the Hub are difficult to quantify," Henry stated, "Most innovations at the beginning are often overlooked, marginalized innovations, but often future mainstream trends start from these marginalized things."
The Hong Kong Ethereum Community Hub, led by SNZ, is not a "crypto hub"; it hopes to focus on the Ethereum ecosystem. While there are countless public chains in the current Web3 space, when it comes to growing from a few people into a community and eventually developing into a behemoth second only to Bitcoin, only Ethereum fits that description. SNZ firmly believes that if there will be any similarly disruptive innovation like DeFi in the future, it will surely happen on Ethereum.
It's not that other public chains are inadequate, but that Ethereum has a more fertile ground.
In the long term, the Hub exists to promote Ethereum's development; there is no doubt about that. But what about specific short-term goals?
Henry mentioned a few very ordinary matters. Firstly, the Hong Kong Ethereum Community Hub can serve as an open base, previously, the Whitepaper Reading Club reached out to SNZ hoping to use the Hub's venue to hold regular classic whitepaper reading events. Compared to online communication, offline interactions are also needed by many community organizations in the current Web3 industry.
For long-term "drifting" professionals and digital nomads in the industry, the Hub can serve as a "second home" for peers to rest, work, hold meetings, and conduct activities; additionally, for some Web3-related projects and companies hoping to land in Hong Kong, the Hub can also provide localized infrastructure support services (e.g., company registration, human resources, legal affairs, etc.).
Henry introduced that currently dozens of enterprises, institutions, and organizations have participated in the Hub platform, some have successfully landed in Hong Kong, "In the future, there will be 50 or even 100 more companies that can exchange through the platform provided by the Hub, find potential partners, and also help aspiring entrepreneurs find ideal partners. We also hope to gather more external resources and channel partners to provide comprehensive empowerment to the Hub ecosystem, from capital, technical support to intermediary services; some may be led by SNZ itself, but we more hope to see 'many hands make light work'."
These matters are not grand but are real existing needs. As a long-standing investment institution, SNZ knows what it needs and is more aware of what entrepreneurs need. Many good ideas are not born in isolation but emerge through chemical reactions in continuous communication. By linking excellent talents, it promotes the collision of ideas and provides infrastructure services for these novel ideas to reach the market, connecting these companies into a network that further nurtures new thoughts.
As Henry said, what the Hub can bring is not easily quantifiable through price or ROI, but past successes tell them that this approach is valid.
What Happened to Ethereum?
"In the early Neutrino blockchain co-creation space of SNZ, many successful cases emerged," SNZ's community manager Leo told me, "The reason for choosing to remain optimistic about Ethereum and only create an Ethereum Hub is that Ethereum is truly an anti-censorship platform, with privacy and open-source capabilities."
The influence of Ethereum is actually far greater than we imagine. In pure technology fields, the Ethereum community's advancements in FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption) and ZKP (Zero-Knowledge Proof) research have been applied in various aspects, even in updates of the iOS system. However, the progress driven silently by these tech geeks is hardly publicized.
This grounding has made SNZ firmly believe and actively support any "new things" that could reignite market sentiment around Web3. Henry even stated, "Although we focus on Ethereum, the Hub has no biases; if friends from Solana come, we welcome them as well. The overall development of the Web3 ecosystem should not be fragmented. Ethereum's strength does not have to sacrifice the survival space of other public chains; we prefer to grow the pie together. The future market size and scale far exceed the current 30 trillion."
It's not just SNZ; countless people are willing to cheer for Ethereum, but why has Ethereum been less eye-catching in recent years than it seems to be?
Henry succinctly summarized market dissatisfaction and criticism into three poignant points:
- There is a need for more teams that deeply understand products, users, and technology, and there is a lack of platforms to connect these people;
- Those who truly do great and long-term things need a stage to voice like KOLs;
- There needs to be sufficient incentives for the community to continue steadfastly investing in Web3, focusing more on matters most people care about and are related to.
Ethereum has not actually changed; it has continuously advanced according to plans honed through countless negotiations. But the market's atmosphere has altered. The fervor of 2021 drained everyone’s imagination about Web3; when all grand stories and visions, backed by billions and trillions of capital, are on the brink of collapse, people instinctively seek quick dopamine fixes to soothe their restless, unsatisfied minds.
This anxiety-driven mentality has led Web3 astray. What SNZ hopes to achieve through the Hub is to bring valuable voices back to the mainstream, guiding Web3 back onto the right track.
"Blockchain is not something entirely new; cryptographic technology itself has long been introduced," Henry stated, "Blockchain and smart contracts essentially solve trust issues, much like how Alibaba’s website resolved the issue of whether to pay first or ship first in the global wholesale trade market over twenty years ago. For example, DeFi is fundamentally a more robust form of peer-to-peer finance; P2P itself isn’t bad, but if exploited by greed, it can lead to irreparable consequences. Blockchain resolves this issue through a trustless consensus mechanism, which has resulted in protocols like MakerDAO."
Current Ethereum may need new ideas that are not constrained by history. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik also expressed at the Hub's opening ceremony, "I encourage everyone to think: What does the world need right now? This answer doesn't have to include only Ethereum—there can be Ethereum along with other things. For example, now in Shenzhen there is a wealth of open-source hardware, various AIs, including those specifically doing music. These directions can be combined by builders to create new things. So I hope everyone can start developing projects that are completely different from Ethereum three years ago."
A Turning Point in History
This viewpoint echoes a16z's announcement not long ago to raise $2 billion to continue betting on pure blockchain projects. Leo also stated, "Ethereum's exploration of privacy and other technologies might not yield much wealth effect but indeed drives continuous development of technology, and it is also one of the necessary conditions for blockchain technology to be adopted on a large scale in the future. We do not solely focus on commercialization but treasure Ethereum's contributions to society in all aspects."
Moreover, Leo noted that the Hub does not just support crypto-native projects; Ethereum’s utility definitely extends beyond a single domain. We welcome all interested individuals, companies, and organizations to understand and participate in the development of Ethereum.
Alsa, which aims to embed "payment capability" natively into every AI call, has also joined the Hub. Its founder expressed to me the hope of contributing real use cases, infrastructure capabilities, and large-scale Agent usage data to help transition the entire ecosystem from concept to implementation.
As the establishment ceremony of the Hong Kong Ethereum Community Hub took place, the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival was also in full swing. Notably, renowned economist Fu Peng delivered the first public speech of 2026 at the carnival venue and officially announced joining the New Flame Group.
Within the Web3 industry, feelings toward Hong Kong are mixed; the love is for having a piece of land willing to serve as a testing ground for Web3 right at one's doorstep, while the hate comes from the fact that after so many years, what Hong Kong has accomplished for Web3 leaves much to be desired. When I asked Henry for his thoughts on this, he raised the initial question.
"China and the U.S. are the two major markets for technological innovation, fintech, and Web3; the Hub, based in Asia, naturally needs to choose a location with a more stable capital market environment as well as regulatory environment," Henry confidently asserted, "I believe Hong Kong's potential is still vastly underestimated."
Fu Peng mentioned in his speech that he feels the timing of his entry into the Web3 industry might be a significant turning point in history. At this turning point, SNZ established the Hub; a16z is preparing to invest an additional $2 billion into the industry; blockchain begins to penetrate and transform traditional finance while others continue to explore native Web3 applications.
Looking back in a few years, we might find ourselves standing right on this turning point, with some still acting, some having begun action, and others hesitating. The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago; the second best time is today. Ten years ago, Ethereum just started to gain widespread publicity after years of community efforts, and today we are unafraid to walk this path again. Over the decade, those who achieve great results are those who believe, not mere speculators.
The Web3 industry is not that mysterious; everyone experiences emotions and desires, and everyone ages and faces death; yet the Web3 industry is also not that simple, as the nature of projects and the organizational forms of teams make everything less manageable. Though nearly twenty years have passed and market focuses have continually shifted, the core of Web3 has remained unchanged, just as Yao passed the throne to Yu, human nature has remained constant.
When the noise of "Web3 has changed" is everywhere, investors who witnessed Ethereum's rise decide to continue their mission in "the oldest" way. This is not a regression of the times, but rather when the tide recedes, experienced beachcombers know: the ebbing waves always bring something and take away something, while true treasures are buried deep in the sands.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
