April marked a decisive structural shift in Hong Kong’s emergence as a global hub for regulated digital assets, as the city rapidly accelerated its Web3 compliance framework. On April 10, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) issued its first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses, with leading financial institutions such as Standard Chartered-backed “Anchor” and HSBC among the early approvals from a competitive pool of 36 applicants. Shortly after, on April 19, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) advanced the next phase of market development by enabling tokenized authorized investment products to be traded on licensed virtual asset platforms in secondary markets.
These coordinated regulatory moves signaled more than policy progress—they established the foundation for a compliant, institutional-grade digital asset economy. For Eddie Chong, Chairman of the SFI (Stable Coin Infrastructure) Ecosystem Foundation, this moment represents the long-awaited convergence of regulation and infrastructure readiness. His long-term thesis—anchoring stablecoins as the settlement core that connects real-world assets (RWA) and artificial intelligence systems—has now transitioned from vision to execution.
Building Ahead of the Cycle: A Focus on Structural Gaps
Eddie Chong’s approach to Web3 development has consistently prioritized infrastructure over speculation. As Chairman of SFI, founder of X Infinity, and Executive Chairman of HK Web3 Club, he operates across a global ecosystem spanning Asia, Europe, and the Americas, with influence across more than 100 companies and a large entrepreneurial network exceeding 20 million participants.
Rather than reacting to market momentum, Chong builds around missing structural layers.
After entering Bitcoin in 2015, he quickly identified scalability limitations that hindered mass payment adoption. This insight led him to establish X Infinity, a blockchain infrastructure initiative focused on performance and scalability. During the 2019–2020 downturn, instead of stepping back, he strategically pivoted toward real-world asset tokenization, anticipating that blockchain’s long-term sustainability would depend on bridging physical and digital economies.
That early conviction has since evolved into a $5 billion RWA portfolio spanning more than 400 investments. In 2026, he co-founded SFI with a clear mandate: solve the fundamental bottlenecks in RWA adoption—liquidity and compliant user access—without which tokenized assets cannot function as real financial instruments.
SFI: A Fully Integrated Value Infrastructure Layer
SFI is not a standalone application but a multi-layered financial infrastructure system designed to unify stablecoins, RWA markets, AI-driven finance, and real-world consumption into a continuous value flow.
At its core lies Solulu Club, providing liquidity infrastructure supported by more than 200,000 active users and deep transactional activity. Surrounding this foundation are five interconnected modules:
- Solulu Pay, enabling compliant fiat and crypto payment rails that connect traditional finance with Web3 ecosystems.
- Caviar, a luxury commerce platform allowing real-world spending using stablecoins.
- COPX DAO, leveraging AI-powered quantitative models to enhance trading performance and liquidity efficiency.
- RWA Incubator, supporting institutional-grade asset tokenization and compliant onboarding.
- RWA Exchange, enabling secondary market trading and price discovery for tokenized assets.
Together, SFI, COPX DAO, and Caviar form what Chong defines as the “Iron Triangle”—a self-reinforcing system where infrastructure, value creation, and consumption continuously interact. Stablecoins serve as the central settlement axis connecting all components.
Hong Kong’s Regulatory Shift as a Scaling Trigger
For years, RWA development was constrained by two core limitations: lack of regulated entry points and insufficient liquidity infrastructure. Hong Kong’s April policy expansion addressed both simultaneously.
The introduction of stablecoin licensing provided a clear regulatory foundation for issuance and circulation, while secondary market approval for tokenized assets created genuine liquidity pathways for digital instruments. Together, these changes positioned Hong Kong as one of the most advanced regulated Web3 jurisdictions globally.
SFI leveraged this shift by actively participating in the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, where it demonstrated a fully integrated ecosystem spanning payments, trading, tokenization, and real-world consumption.
During industry discussions, Chong emphasized a critical structural issue: tokenization alone does not create utility. Without users and liquidity, assets remain inactive. He highlighted that SFI’s advantage lies in its existing user base and its ability to generate real consumption demand, particularly within high-value stablecoin use cases.
At the same time, SFI continues expanding its global compliance footprint, securing regulatory approvals across multiple jurisdictions including the United States and Canada, while advancing in the UAE and Hong Kong. This compliance architecture is designed not only for internal scalability but also as reusable infrastructure for the broader Web3 ecosystem.
The Next Evolution: Convergence of RWA and AI
Chong views the current RWA expansion as only the foundation of a broader transformation. The next phase will be defined by the deep convergence of real-world assets and artificial intelligence.
On-chain RWA assets have already exceeded $25 billion, with projections pointing toward multi-trillion-dollar growth by 2030. Meanwhile, AI systems are rapidly evolving from analytical tools into autonomous economic agents capable of executing transactions and managing capital flows.
He sees this convergence as structurally inevitable: RWA provides the underlying value layer, while AI delivers the intelligence required to activate and optimize it at scale.
Within SFI’s ecosystem, this integration is already operational. COPX DAO uses AI models to execute automated trading strategies such as hedging, arbitrage, and yield optimization. In parallel, AI-driven analytics generate real-time pricing signals based on market behavior, asset fundamentals, and sentiment data—addressing long-standing inefficiencies in valuation and liquidity discovery.
Chong’s framework remains consistent: compliance forms the foundation, stablecoins serve as the axis, AI functions as the engine, and RWA provides the fuel. Together, they create a self-sustaining financial flywheel.
From Vision to Operating System
Eddie Chong’s trajectory reflects a consistent philosophy: identify structural gaps early and build foundational systems ahead of market adoption.
With SFI, that philosophy is now transitioning into a functioning ecosystem that integrates financial infrastructure, technological intelligence, and real-world utility. Hong Kong’s regulatory acceleration has acted as a catalyst, but long-term success will depend on scalable infrastructure capable of sustaining liquidity, compliance, and adoption across cycles.
As stablecoins, RWA, and AI continue to converge, the value flywheel Chong envisioned is no longer theoretical. It is becoming an operational system—designed not for speculation, but for continuous, real-world value creation at scale.
Follow SFI and ecosystem partners:
- SoluluPay: https://x.com/SoluluClub_web3
- Caviar: https://x.com/shopcaviar
- COPX DAO: https://x.com/Copx_DAO
Related links:
https://hackernoon.com/preview/69dd93f363a00fd65ee51d8f
https://www.me.news/contents/273131
https://www.techub.news/articleDetail/9ecd8c5e-616d-41bf-9da2-c0a99e918ddf