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South China Morning Post
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Ant Group’s blockchain arm Zan wants to be the Google or Microsoft of Web3 in Hong Kong

Ant Group is an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post.
Ant Digital Technologies already operates AntChain, currently China’s biggest enterprise-facing blockchain platform. The company had 26.5 per cent of the blockchain-as-a-service market in China in 2023, while rival Tencent Holdings was the second-largest provider with 18 per cent of the market, according to a report by research firm IDC in July.

Ant established Zan in Hong Kong to expand its blockchain services outside mainland China, according to Zhang.

“AntChain had already made it to the top in mainland China’s blockchain market,” Zhang said. “Setting up an entity in Hong Kong gives us more freedom to explore, given the city’s [supportive] policy guidance and environment.”

Mainland China is relatively conservative about certain Web3 innovations, and Ant hopes to do more “forward-looking” things in Hong Kong’s “open environment”, he added.

The Chinese government has over the years ramped up its crackdown on cryptocurrencies – the main use case of blockchain technology today – saying that they disrupt economic and financial order and are a breeding ground for criminal activity.

Hong Kong, meanwhile, has been pushing to develop into a virtual asset hub and attract business to the city, with tacit approval from Beijing.
Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce rival JD.com also created a Hong Kong subsidiary this year, named Jingdong Coinlink, which participated in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)’s stablecoin sandbox that launched in July.
Ant Digital Technologies is among the participants in the HKMA’s wholesale central bank digital currency sandbox announced on Thursday, which explores tokenisation across a range of scenarios. The company is involved in sandbox projects that tokenise electric vehicle charging stations and electronic bills of lading, a document used in the global shipping industry.

“The trading of tokenised assets and funds on the blockchain has a similar technical model to that of public blockchains today, but it is in a more regulated and secure environment, where you won’t lose money because of a private key,” Zhang said. “That makes it more user-friendly for the general public.”

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