Hong Kong, April 21, 2026 —Asia's first Ethereum community hub, ETH Hong Kong Hub, officially launched on April 21, 2026. Supported by the Ethereum Foundation's Ethereum Everywhere (EE) team and co-operated by SNZ and ETHTAO, the Hub represents the first permanent, open, and self-sustaining physical community space for the Ethereum ecosystem in Asia — further cementing Hong Kong's position as a critical node in the global digital asset and technology innovation landscape.
The Grand Opening&Meetup brought together core figures from the global Ethereum ecosystem, institutional representatives, and the broader technical community. Attendees and speakers included Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin, President of Ethereum Foundation Aya Miyaguchi, Hong Kong Legislative Council Member (Technology & Innovation) HON Duncan Chiu, Director of the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises Mr. Peter Yan, SNZ Founder Gilles Shi, Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom, and HashKey Group Chairman and CEO Dr. XIAO Feng, among others.
The event drew over 1,500 registrants and welcomed developers, institutions, and innovators from around the world — making it one of the most anticipated events of Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2026. A total of 16 founders/CEOs and 10 SVPs or business leads participated as keynote and panel speakers.
The ETH HK Hub Grand Opening & Meetup was also supported by Spark, Lido, Galaxy Digital, and Zand Bank as co-sponsor, who collectively supported the growth and exchange of the Ethereum ecosystem across Asia.
Positioning Hong Kong as Home for Builders
ETH Hong Kong Hub is more than a physical space — it is a long-term, always-on community hub connecting developers, institutions, and founders, and driving the deep integration of Web2 and Web3.
"With Vitalik, Aya, and other core Ethereum representatives coming to Hong Kong, this city is once again becoming a gathering point for builders from around the world — a place people can come back to."
"Hong Kong is Asia's financial and innovation hub, and one of the world's most active and institutionally sound Web3 environments. ETH Hong Kong Hub sits at the heart of West Kowloon, connecting all corners of the world."
"With ten months’ efforts from planning to launch, we built this space from the ground up alongside the Ethereum Foundation. The launch today gives birth to a community by builders and for builders"
— Henry Chen, CBO, SNZ Holding
ETH Hong Kong Hub serves as the community anchor of this home, bringing together builders from all backgrounds to meet, collaborate, and grow. The Hub offers members and Ethereum co-builders a one-stop platform — from co-working and event space to localization support (including company incorporation and talent services), ecosystem empowerment, incubation, investment, and business development. "Let there be roof for all" — a true community is one where everyone belongs.
Vitalik Buterin: A New Building Cycle Is Emerging
At the Grand Opening fireside chat, Vitalik Buterin and Duncan Chiu conversed in Mandarin, reflecting on Vitalik's decade-long connection with the Chinese-speaking community. They explored Ethereum's latest roadmap, L2 scaling, AI, and quantum resistance.
Vitalik noted that as zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology matures and artificial intelligence dramatically lowers the barrier to development, a new generation of developers now has unprecedented opportunities. He highlighted:
- L2s should complement L1, not simply replicate it
- L1 remains the irreplaceable native settlement layer
- Future scaling encompasses not only data scaling, but also computational scaling
On AI and quantum resistance, Vitalik stated that these challenges are "entirely solvable, but require serious and deliberate effort," emphasizing that infrastructure must be future-proofed for long-term change. He also encouraged Chinese-speaking community builders to start from real-world needs, exploring new combinations of Ethereum with AI and open-source hardware — and to create application forms distinct from what came before.
Aya Miyaguchi: Why Ethereum Prioritizes Sustainability Over Control
In a separate fireside chat, Ethereum Foundation President Aya Miyaguchi shared the core philosophy behind the ecosystem's long-term development.
She explained that the Ethereum Foundation's goal is not to lead or control the ecosystem, but to ensure the system has the capacity to operate independently over the long term. She introduced the "Walk-Away Test": at some point in the future, the protocol and ecosystem should be able to run stably even without the Foundation's involvement.
"The system needs to be able to keep running — even without the Ethereum Foundation."
— Aya Miyaguchi, President, Ethereum Foundation
Aya explained that this principle stems from the Foundation's longstanding "philosophy of subtraction." During the ICO boom, the Foundation faced pressure to expand teams and build a corporate structure with positions like CTO or CMO — but chose not to. Instead, it embraced a model of "coordination, not control" to support the ecosystem's development.
This design allows the Ethereum ecosystem to continue evolving without relying on any single center, generating new innovation continuously.
Aya also noted that community spaces like ETH Hong Kong Hub are a reflection of the Ethereum ecosystem's organic evolution — demonstrating the continued vitality and activity of the global community across different regions.
Joseph Chalom: Ethereum Is Becoming the World's Financial Ledger
Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom delivered a keynote that systematically articulated Ethereum's long-term value from an institutional finance perspective. He argued that the global financial system is undergoing a profound transformation, and that legacy trust mechanisms are deeply inefficient:
- Trade settlement still takes 1–3 days
- Thousands of siloed, fragmented databases exist globally
- Enormous costs are absorbed by intermediaries and trust-building processes
"Ethereum is becoming the world's financial ledger and ultimate trustware."
— Joseph Chalom, CEO, Sharplink
Joseph further argued that Ethereum has established a leading position in security, liquidity, and institutional trust. The growth of stablecoins, real-world assets (RWA), and DeFi is constructing an entirely new on-chain financial system.
He emphasized that as regulatory clarity emerges and institutional capital accelerates on-chain, blockchain technology is transitioning from experimentation to large-scale deployment.
Animoca Brands × EVG: AI Agents Are Reshaping the On-Chain Economy
In a fireside chat, EVG Co-Founder and Co-CEO Allen Ng and Animoca Brands Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Yat Siu explored AI agents and Web3 applications.
Yat Siu described how AI agents are evolving from information tools into systems with genuine execution capabilities — able to participate in real-world tasks and, in the future, form large-scale automated collaboration networks. He noted that as users increasingly access information through AI rather than clicking links, the advertising-driven internet business model faces significant disruption.
"The future is not about traffic. It's about micro, high-frequency payments driven by agents."
— Yat Siu, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Animoca Brands
He further emphasized that as agent-to-agent interactions and transaction volumes grow, blockchain's low-cost, real-time settlement capabilities position it as the essential infrastructure for the agentic economy. Allen Ng added that AI agents will significantly lower the barrier to Web3 adoption, enabling users to perform on-chain operations through agents and driving broader application adoption.
Agenda From AI to On-Chain Finance: Key Themes from the Hub Opening
The ETH HK Hub Grand Opening focused on the key application areas of the Ethereum ecosystem. From infrastructure and AI × blockchain convergence to on-chain finance and real-world assets, the agenda systematically presented Ethereum’s full journey from technological evolution to large-scale adoption.
In the Institutional Crypto Adoption panel, Samuel Chong from Lido, Leroy Lin from Galaxy Digital, Jaewon Yu from SignalPlus, and Shan Shan Shui from Morpho discussed institutional adoption of crypto assets. Covering areas such as liquid staking, institutional trading services, and on-chain lending, they explored how institutional capital is gradually entering the on-chain ecosystem.
Michael Dong, Co-Founder and CEO of Brevis, delivered a keynote titled “100X Ethereum L1: The ZK Path to Infinite Compute.” His talk focused on zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) and verifiable computation, proposing that by “decoupling computation from verification,” it may be possible to overcome the performance bottlenecks caused by redundant computation on blockchains, providing a foundational infrastructure path for Ethereum to achieve massive scalability.
In the Future AI on Blockchain panel, Yi Zhang (CEO of Codatta), Rui Ding (Co-Founder of Quantum Quills), Jordan Liu (Founder and CEO of Alsa), and Ran Yi (Co-Founder of Starchild / Orderly) discussed the convergence of AI and blockchain. They argued that AI agents are evolving from tools into economic participants, while blockchain will provide the decentralized payment and settlement network to support them.
Dr. Xiang Xie, Co-Founder and CEO of Primus, delivered a keynote titled “Building Verifiable Agents for the Autonomous Economy.” He proposed that future AI agents will require not only execution capabilities, but also verifiability, and that on-chain verification layers will become critical infrastructure for enabling automated transactions and trusted collaboration among agents.
In the From Stablecoins to Real Settlement: Building Global Liquidity on Ethereum panel, Larry Ma (CSO of SNZ Holding), Christian Li (Founder of Infini), Yolanda Liu (Co-Founder of Pay Protocol), Gigi Yip (Global Business Director of Cap Money), and Michael Chan (CEO of Zand Bank) discussed stablecoins, on-chain settlement, and global liquidity. They noted that stablecoins are driving capital migration onto the blockchain and gradually establishing a financial system with blockchain as the settlement layer.
Niki Ariyasinghe, VP of Asia Pacific and Middle East at Chainlink, delivered a keynote titled “Integrating TradFi with Web3: Growth in Asia.” From an institutional perspective, he shared the latest developments in on-chain compliance, asset tokenization, and cross-border asset distribution, and highlighted Hong Kong’s growing role as a key hub for institutional on-chain finance globally.
Serena Wang, Head of HashKey Chain, delivered a keynote titled “On-chain Financial Infrastructure for the Age of AI.”She introduced the development of on-chain financial infrastructure designed for institutions, developers, users, and AI agents, emphasizing how compliant DeFi, RWA issuance, and institutional-grade service systems can connect traditional capital markets with the on-chain economy.
Yuxin, representing GCC, delivered a keynote focused on public goods and the open-source ecosystem. He shared GCC’s long-term support for open-source infrastructure, privacy networks, and developer communities, emphasizing that the long-term development of Web3 depends not only on commercial drivers, but also on sustained investment in public goods and nonprofit funding.
Overall, the opening agenda followed a clear progression — from institutional adoption, technical scaling, and AI agents, to payments and settlement, on-chain finance, and public goods — presenting a complete evolutionary path of the Ethereum ecosystem from foundational innovation to real-world application.
Hong Kong Emerges as a Key Hub for Ethereum in Asia
As a critical bridge connecting Asia to global capital, Hong Kong holds unique advantages in regulation, finance, and cross-border integration.
Duncan Chiu noted that the establishment of ETH Hong Kong Hub will further strengthen Hong Kong's standing as an international technology and digital asset hub.
ETH Hong Kong Hub is designed for continuity:
- A permanently open, offline collaboration space
- Regular technical meetups and community programming
- Long-term connectivity between developers, institutions, and founders
The Hub's inaugural membership includes over 30 ecosystem participants across infrastructure, DeFi, institutional services, and emerging applications.
About ETH Hong Kong Hub
ETH Hong Kong Hub is Asia's first Ethereum offline community hub, supported by the Ethereum Foundation's Ethereum Everywhere team and co-operated by SNZ and ETHTAO.
The Hub is dedicated to connecting the East and West, bridging Web 2 and Web 3, and driving long-term growth and adoption through community building and resource coordination.