TechFlow reports that Hashkey Exchange will only be open to users from the 16 countries and regions approved by the SFC, and does not support users from mainland China. Even mainland residents holding a Hong Kong work visa cannot trade on Hashkey Exchange. However, mainland users who hold a Hong Kong ID card and can provide proof of a fixed residential address in Hong Kong along with a Hong Kong bank account may qualify to open an account and trade on the platform.
The platform will detect users' geographical locations through methods such as IP addresses and VPNs. Users holding a Hong Kong permanent resident ID card who conduct trading activities from within mainland China will be detected and restricted.
Currently, Hashkey Exchange already has hundreds of thousands of pre-registered users and expects to officially launch trading services for fully registered retail users in September. The platform aims to reach 500,000 to 1 million registered users by the end of 2023 and 10 to 15 million registered users by the end of 2025.
The platform has partnered with four banks to provide services, including one Hong Kong note-issuing bank, two Chinese-funded banks operating in Hong Kong, and virtual bank ZhongAn Bank.
Hashkey Exchange implements strict asset storage arrangements, keeping 98% of digital assets in isolated cold wallet systems and only 2% in hot wallets. KPMG, PwC, and EY conduct external independent audits, group internal audits, and code audits for the exchange, respectively.
The trading platform has partnered with AON Insurance to insure user assets, covering 50% of cold wallet assets and 100% of hot wallet assets. The initial insurance coverage is expected to be around USD 500 million.
