Lawmaker says COVID policy — not China’s crypto ban — drove firms from Hong Kong

Hong Kong lawmaker Johnny Ng says harsh COVID travel rules, not China’s 2021 crypto ban, pushed firms out as Hong Kong and Singapore now compete head‑to‑head as crypto hubs.

Summary

• Hong Kong Legislative Council member Dr. Johnny Ng Kit-chong argued at Consensus HK on March 24 that COVID-era travel restrictions — not China’s 2021 crypto ban — were the primary reason crypto companies departed the city.
• Hong Kong and Singapore are now described as “neck and neck” for Asia’s top crypto hub position, with Hong Kong having fully opened its doors to retail crypto trading by 2026 following years of regulatory rebuilding.
• The remarks come as the global crypto industry reassesses regional hub rankings, with Dubai’s appeal under pressure from geopolitical risk and both Hong Kong and Singapore aggressively courting displaced firms.

Hong Kong Legislative Council member Dr. Johnny Ng Kit-chong (@Johnny_nkc) said at Consensus HK on March 24 that it was the city’s strict COVID-era policies — not Beijing’s 2021 ban on crypto trading and mining — that drove companies out of Hong Kong, pushing back against a widely held narrative that has shaped the industry’s perception of the city for years.​

Speaking in a video interview hosted by @_dsencil for Bitcoin.com News at Consensus HK, Ng argued that the real culprit was Hong Kong’s prolonged zero-COVID regime, which imposed mandatory 14-day hotel quarantines for international arrivals, flight bans from major western countries including the US and UK, and effectively cut the city off from the global business community between 2020 and 2022.

The Human Cost of Zero-COVID

The data backs up the argument. According to the Hong Kong American Chamber of Commerce’s 2022 Business Sentiment Survey, more than 50% of respondents considered leaving Hong Kong due to COVID-related travel restrictions and quarantine requirements. Business executives cited those restrictions — not political or regulatory risk — as the primary factor making Hong Kong uncompetitive. Senior figures departed from JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Mandarin Oriental, while corporations including V.F. Corporation relocated their operations entirely.​

For crypto firms specifically, the inability to freely move founders, executives, and developers in and out of a city that prides itself on being a global connector was more disruptive than any regulatory directive from Beijing. Companies including FTX, which was headquartered in Hong Kong before moving to the Bahamas ahead of its November 2022 collapse, made their exits during the height of the restrictions period — not in direct response to China’s ban.

Hong Kong vs. Singapore: A New Rivalry

Ng also addressed what he called a genuine competitive dynamic now emerging between Hong Kong and Singapore for the title of Asia’s leading crypto jurisdiction. By 2026, Hong Kong has fully opened retail crypto trading, licensed ten virtual asset trading platforms through the Securities and Futures Commission, and established a legislative subcommittee on Web3 — which Ng himself chairs.​

Singapore, meanwhile, has delayed implementation of Basel Committee crypto banking rules to 2027, giving banks more adjustment time, while continuing to attract institutional capital through the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s tokenized finance initiatives. Analysts who previously saw Singapore pulling ahead following its regulatory crackdown on unlicensed firms now describe the two cities as operating in genuine parity — each with distinct strengths, and both drawing firms rotating away from Dubai as geopolitical risk in the Gulf rises.

A Lawmaker Rebuilding the Narrative

Ng’s intervention at Consensus HK is itself significant. CoinDesk named him one of the Top 50 Most Influential People in Cryptocurrency in 2024, and he has been one of the most vocal government-affiliated advocates for Web3 adoption in Hong Kong since 2021. His argument — that COVID policy rather than political repression was the decisive variable — is a deliberate reframing aimed at reassuring firms that the structural conditions that made Hong Kong attractive in the first place remain intact, now that the pandemic restrictions are gone.