「Techie」 Ant Group Leads the Way in Hong Kong

Any city that has once prospered greatly needs to take a deep breath, and Hong Kong is a prime example.

It was once synonymous with dreams and prosperity: in 2006, ICBC set a nearly $19 billion global record with its Hong Kong IPO, and in 2019, 160 IPOs raised over $40 billion, ranking first globally; Central's Grade A office rents held the title of most expensive globally for many years, Victoria Harbour's lights reflected Asia's busiest trading floor, and this city once held the most important capital nerve center in East Asia.

However, in recent years, this engine has begun to slow down.

In 2023, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange raised only HK$46.3 billion through IPOs, hitting a nearly two-decade low. Meanwhile, Hong Kong residents are emigrating, private residential prices have been declining year after year, office vacancy rates are approaching a historical peak of 17.5%, small and medium-sized brokerages are consolidating, some institutions are establishing offshore branches, preparing for the next cycle.

For too long, this city has been too cramped, too crowded, too expensive. But the foundation and resilience of Hong Kong are still there: the capital markets remain open, the legal system is mature enough, and the institutional experience can withstand the polishing of complex situations.

A deep breath has led to a reflow of resources, creating a rare buffer zone for the city.

IPO activity began to pick up in 2024, with several new consumer and technology companies restarting their Hong Kong listing plans. In the first half of 2025, the fundraising amount has nearly reached the level of the previous year, and funds and enterprise confidence are gradually being restored. Web3 is in the midst of this new cycle.

Since 2022, "developing the Web3 ecosystem" has been included in both the fiscal budget and policy address. However, contrary to the Hong Kong government's expectations, a carefully orchestrated arbitrage game has played out in reality. Especially after the JPEX incident, even tea restaurant owners have started advising others, "Don't believe in these things anymore."

But the Hong Kong government understands the ways of financial transactions. Licenses, sandboxes, regulatory declarations... Step by step, a Web3 ecosystem guided by real value and compliance is unfolding in Hong Kong.

At the same time, a rare Chinese team rooted in engineering logic is quietly building a bridge between real assets and the blockchain. Starting from the digitization verification of off-chain assets, they are redefining how Web3 should land in reality, aligning with the Hong Kong government.

They are Ant Group.

Deconstructing "Narrative" Back to "Engineering"

In 2016, Shanghai hosted the Ethereum Developers Conference, with the venue packed and the atmosphere sizzling. At that time, the industry wasn't called Web3 yet, and the speakers on stage waved laser pointers, their PowerPoint slides filled with expectations for the industry's future. The crowd below was restless, their gazes intense, but no one knew if the brick beneath their feet could truly land.

A female developer named Yan Ying, who was already dedicated to blockchain technology research at the time, recalled the conference, saying, "We felt as if the dim light was in the distance, but we didn't know where the road was. We are here to blaze a trail."

Over a year later, driven by her persistence and enthusiasm for the industry, she joined AntChain as the Chief Scientist of Ant Group. Right from the start, they decided to take the most uncompromising path.

At that time, the crypto market was hot, with many projects securing oversubscribed funding based on a fancy PPT alone. "100x coins" and "1000x coins" stacked up to create the illusion of overnight riches. Their choice went against the trend of the "coin circle."

In 2018, after laying down the foundation, AntChain opened free trials to enterprises. Demand quickly poured in, and the backend data energized the team.

After a one-year trial period, the commercial version was launched in 2019, and the initially heated on-chain data noticeably shrunk.

"Everyone was unwilling to pay for it," Yan Ying said calmly yet resolutely.

It was a wake-up call and a bitter pill to swallow.

Ant Group realized that if they couldn't create real value for enterprises, all the hype would be an illusion. Since then, they have been more focused on how to make blockchain technology meet the real needs of businesses.

Looking back on this journey, Yan Ying said that every line of code was meant to solidly solve a problem: Can't support the data structure? Then refactor the index; Performance not enough? Then break down the execution module; Do enterprise clients need privacy protection? Then introduce ZK.

Unlike most practitioners, they decided to break the narrative back into engineering, which also became the starting point for all of Ant Group's subsequent technological layout.

Let's Go to Hong Kong

In January 2023, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority released the "Consultation Conclusions on the Regulation of Stablecoins and Crypto Assets," and in the same month, the VASP provisions officially came into effect, symbolizing the virtual asset industry's inclusion in the mainstream regulatory framework.

For many teams, this was just a policy document; but for the Ant Group team, it was like a signal flare piercing through the silence of the night.

At that time, the mainland had just recovered from the pandemic, and the city had not fully regained its vitality. However, the immigration hall in Hangzhou was already crowded before dawn. It was the first day of the restoration of travel permit processing, and the Ant Group team arrived early in the morning to line up for Hong Kong and Macau travel permits. They waited in line from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

A few days later, they obtained their Hong Kong and Macau Travel Permit. Without any hesitation, they immediately prepared to set off for Hong Kong. Early the next day, they boarded a flight to Hong Kong. Taking off from Beijing Daxing, it was Southern Airlines' inaugural flight on the "Beijing-Hong Kong" route after the pandemic. The boarding gate was lively with drumming and cheering, colorful flags flying, and there was even a performance and media interviews on the plane.

This was a symbol of a restart amidst the hustle and bustle, and also a lively scene carrying the echoes of the times.

Upon landing in Hong Kong, they immediately shuttled around Hong Kong Island. They met with law firms, visited Think Tanks, engaged with regulators, and understood policy execution details. The team was not superstitious about policies, they only cared about one thing: whether this policy window was a real opportunity or just a gimmick.

After communicating with various parties, they quickly made a judgment: this could work.

After confirming that Hong Kong's policy window had indeed opened, Ant Group's technology team immediately plunged into a new round of system construction. Their proprietary blockchain technology landing in Hong Kong? This made them feel a long-lost sense of clarity and excitement, like the first time planting crops in spring.

Ant Group had laid a solid foundation, having prepared in infrastructure for many years. Over five years, they painstakingly built their infrastructure step by step. They redefined the consensus mechanism, restructured the execution engine and account model, and also achieved a significant balance between chain computing, storage, and privacy modules.

Finally, a full-process technical solution covering from tokenized assets to tokenized funds was presented in front of Hong Kong.

They once thought that creating a blockchain was straightforward, but later realized that to make it commercially viable, it meant that every technical module must continuously evolve with the business. From supply chain finance to IoT applications, and then to the high-concurrency challenge of the Data Repository Platform Whale Explorer, every scenario forced this blockchain to evolve time and time again.

"Now, in this system, there are hardly a few lines left of the old code from 2018," Yan Ying sighed.

Ecosystem Openness, Embracing a New World

Technological updates are just the first step. To ensure that their ecosystem can develop and truly be referred to as an "ecosystem," Ant Group decided to shift from their previous consortium chain framework to be Ethereum-compatible, comprehensively laying out the L1 and L2 underlying chain ecosystem.

Yan Ying told BlockBeats that, "Currently, eighty to ninety percent of the ecosystem is built around Ethereum, and they are truly outstanding." She said that embracing and integrating into this ecosystem is an important choice to promote the broader implementation of Web3.

Indeed, from an ecosystem perspective, even if the technology is excellent, it is meaningless if no one can use it. Therefore, Ant Group has developed a browser, adapted to the EVM, optimized RPC interface, and built their L2 public chain called Jovay.

Jovay is a Layer 2 public chain built for financial-grade applications, with a unique three-stage hierarchical confirmation mechanism, supporting 100,000 TPS throughput and millisecond-level response.

Jovay's high performance and low latency are achieved through a transaction execution phase that uses a full pipeline parallel execution engine, dividing transaction processing into multiple independent execution units for parallel scheduling. Along with a dynamic load balancing mechanism, it features cluster-scalable performance characteristics while significantly reducing response latency. With security enhancements from various proof systems such as TEE and ZK, coupled with a comprehensive end-to-end intelligent development toolset that integrates AI-assisted contract writing, debugging, performance analysis, and security audit, it provides smart support from code to deployment.

However, Ant Group does not believe that "performance" is equivalent to "capability." To make a chain run in the real world, it must bear the weight of the business.

Five years ago, they began attempting to use blockchain to connect IoT, turning power plants, photovoltaic panels, and sensors into trusted data sources. They equipped these devices with hardware encryption modules, allowing data to be signed before being placed on the chain, generating a unique on-chain fingerprint.

This early accumulation found a real foothold in Hong Kong.

Ant Group utilized the device verification system that had been successfully implemented in the alliance chain system to upload real-time asset operating data signatures and, through on-chain structuring, packaging, and mapping, supported companies like LONGi, GCL, and Trina Solar in completing RWA issuances. They have established the world's largest network of new energy RWA devices, with over 15 million new energy devices already connected.

They did not opt for the easier path of "financial RWA" but chose the most challenging direction, first tackling a tough nut, establishing a set of viable processes and samples, making RWA the first bridge between the real world and the chain.

Ant Group places great emphasis on the opportunity in Hong Kong. In their view, RWA is a crucial factor in instilling greater confidence in Web3 among regulators, financial institutions, government agencies, and society.

"Our strategic focus on solving real-world problems has never changed," said Yan Ying. "Today, as Ant Group targets a more diverse market, we must have a more open mindset."

Ant Group has chosen not to continue using the "Ant" brand, a well-known "Web2 tech giant" in people's minds, and has named their L2 with a completely new brand. They are attempting to engage in this global narrative with a more native posture.

Alibaba is a label of Hangzhou. Its emergence has transformed the city's industrial structure, narrative language, and even the way citizens imagine the future. So, will Ant Group become the next label of Hong Kong?

“We are working hard,” Yan Ying said, “It doesn't make sense for Ant Group not to be one of the first companies to go global. I am quite confident.”

Give Web3 Another Chance, Let Speculation No Longer Be Its Primary Use Case

On a clear evening after the rain, the Causeway Bay MTR station was bustling with people. Below the Central office buildings, a group of suit-clad employees were busy staring at their phones. While they were all hustling in their own lives, they may not necessarily know that the city they live in is telling a brand new story.

Hong Kong does not aspire to create a crypto version of Las Vegas. The previous Web3 era focused more on token prices and narratives, but going forward, it must be built on real-world assets. Only when assets like gold, precious metals, and renewable energy are tokenized, can Web3 truly become the underlying infrastructure of the financial system.

RWA + stablecoins serve as a value vehicle and a means of exchange, marking this turning point.

Hong Kong understands how assets are structured and how rules protect transaction trust; it knows how capital operates and has connections to the global financial network. In the past, it used offshore systems to handle USD liquidity flows, and now it may use blockchain to tokenize and transfer real-world assets, facilitating global circulation through stablecoins.

Not every place is suitable for telling this story, but perhaps Hong Kong really can.

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