Ronald Leung’s original, dated commentary is reproduced below. Views, invitations and product references reflect the time of publication; they are not investment advice, an offer, a guarantee of return or confirmation of current availability.
Hong Kong already regulates gold in three places. The question we are about to ask does not live in any of them.
Customs handles gold moving in and out. The SFC takes gold once it is packaged into an investment product. The HKMA looks at fiat, and at anything that moves monetary policy.
That map used to work. It was drawn when a bar of gold only did one job at a time.
Now consider the proposition of tokenised gold. It is backed by physical gold. And it has potential to become a settlement unit. All the while gold itself could be an investment target.
The quick answer is to call it a virtual asset and move on.
But gold is unlike Bitcoin. It was not invented.
So the harder question is not which of the three regulators it belongs to. It belongs to all three at once.
The question is who sees it first.
Disclosure: Esperanza operates a tokenised gold business. — Let's open the statute. A new breakdown every week.