Virtual Assets
JPEX: The HK$1.5bn Blind Spot
Hong Kong's largest financial fraud — 2,400 victims, three months after the VATP regime started. The Alert List's limits, the transitional loophole, influencer-liability vacuum.
Deep analysis →The VATP Exodus: Too Strict, or Too Late?
A licensing regime designed to attract global platforms drove OKX, Gate and KuCoin away instead — the licence-economics equation that didn't balance.
Deep analysis →Stablecoin Ordinance: Among the World's Strictest?
Cap. 656 — extraterritorial reach, criminal thresholds, 100% reserves. Bold on paper; the OTC gap and enforcement radius tell another story.
Deep analysis →Crypto ETFs: World-First Products, World-Last Volumes
Hong Kong beat the US to spot-ETH ETFs with in-kind creation — then traded HK$87m on day one. The product won; the market didn't exist.
Deep analysis →Manipulation & Enforcement
Ding Yi Feng: The HK$6.35bn Freeze & Dual-Track Enforcement
The SFC's largest-ever asset freeze plus Shenzhen criminal prosecution — s.213 civil restitution meets "structural manipulation".
Deep analysis →Segantii: The Information Boundary of Block Trades
Asia's biggest hedge fund criminally charged — the wall-crossing grey zone, seven years of investigation, collapse before verdict.
Deep analysis →Pump and Dump: Industrialised Market Manipulation
Largest SFC-ICAC joint operation — influencer chatrooms, brokerage insiders, HK$191m of alleged gains. The inside-men problem.
Deep analysis →Corporate Collapse & Credit
Evergrande: The Cost of a Decade of Listings
US$300bn of liabilities wound up by a Hong Kong court — the offshore-listing/onshore-assets dead end.
Deep analysis →LME Nickel: The Cost of Cancelling US$12bn of Trades
An HKEX subsidiary voided lawful executions under emergency powers — won in court, lost the market's trust.
Deep analysis →New World Deferral: The Perpetual-Bond Trust Crisis
A blue-chip lawfully deferred US$77.2m of coupons — the market treated it as default anyway. "Perpetual" is a misleading name.
Deep analysis →Credit Suisse AT1: The Inversion of the Capital Stack
CHF16bn written to zero while shareholders got CHF3bn — the inversion that repriced global AT1 markets. HK private-bank clients were hit hardest.
Deep analysis →Cross-border Regulation & Market Structure
Futu & Tiger: The End of the Cross-Border Grey Zone
Ten years of HK-licensed, mainland-acquired internet brokerage — ended by a single CSRC ruling. Licence is territorial; solicitation is too.
Deep analysis →IPO Drought: Can Reform Save Hong Kong?
An 89% four-year collapse; the 2024 "recovery" was one Midea deal. Technical reform vs the geopolitical risk premium.
Deep analysis →The SPAC Regime: Designed to Death
Five listings in three years, four liquidations — a regime built to avoid America's bubble avoided a market altogether.
Deep analysis →HFCAA Delisting Threat: From Backup to Home Turf
The delisting clock drove 160+ Chinese issuers to dual-primary conversions — Alibaba's conversion unlocked Stock Connect.
Deep analysis →Financial Infrastructure & Policy Experiments
eMPF: The Chaotic Birth of a Billion-Dollar Platform
Centralising 4.7 million people's pension administration — economies of scale met single point of failure; trustees' duty didn't follow the power.
Deep analysis →The Linked Peg Under Fire: 337.5bn → 44.9bn
Hedge funds' "free option" against the HKMA's autopilot — the Aggregate Balance drain was the design working, not ammunition running out.
Deep analysis →Virtual Banks: Five Years, All in the Red
Eight licences at once, five years of losses, 0.3% deposit share — the "low-cost revolution" that cost billions to produce an externality.
Deep analysis →Full Cooling-Measure Removal: Thirteen Years, Gone Overnight
SSD/BSD/NRSD abolished in a day; prices kept falling. One-way tools can suppress a rise but cannot prop up a fall.
Deep analysis →