InvestHK Presents Web3 Showcase at Hong Kong FinTech Week 2023: Arkreen, a Leading DePIN Project, Shines on the 1st Anniversary of Digital Assets Policy Announcement
Hong Kong FinTech Week 2023 (HKFTW2023), organized by the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK), has emerged as a beacon of FinTech excellence in Asia. Running from October 30th to November 5th, with its main physical conference on November 2nd and 3rd at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, the event expects to draw more than 30,000 attendees and 5 million online viewers from over 90 economies.
On November 2nd, The 2023 Hong Kong FinTech Week marked a significant milestone as it celebrated the first anniversary of the Digital Assets Policy Announcement made by the InvestHK. One year after the digital assets policy announcement by the HKSAR government at the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2022, it has generated enormous positive momentum in the digital assets and web3 ecosystem in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has also been attracting international attention from media to industry leaders around the world regarding our supportive policy to foster this emerging new industry. Yet there have been questions about how digital assets and web3 can create new business and other societal benefits for our “real” economy, what does it take for Hong Kong to become a global digital assets and web3 leader, etc. Meanwhile, many industry pioneers have been working tirelessly over the past year to grab this once-in-a-generation opportunity while answering to the call from the supportive policy of the HKSAR government. At this session, InvestHK is proud to present four real-life use cases to demonstrate how digital assets and web3 can add value to the economy, the lives of the Hong Kong residents, and the impact to the rest of the world!
Jimmy Chiang, Acting Director-General of Investment Promotion at Invest Hong Kong, delivered an opening speech, emphasizing the remarkable progress that has been achieved in the past year. He acknowledged the continuous efforts of industry pioneers in seizing the unprecedented opportunities provided by the supportive policies of the Hong Kong government.
“Since our government’s announcement of the virtual assets policy statement in a fintech week last year, numerous favorable initiatives from policy and regulation to private companies projects have been launched almost like non-stop. And we have seen enormous positive momentum. In our digital assets and Web3 ecosystem in Hong Kong, attracting international attention of media and industry leaders from around the world. Meanwhile, many industry pioneers have been working tirelessly over the last year to grab this once-in-a-generation opportunity while also answering the call from the supportive policy of the Hong Kong government.
In this session, we are proud to present several real-life cases to demonstrate how digital assets and Web3 can add value to our economy, improve the lives of Hong Kong residents, and also bring big impact to the whole world. Their transformative projects are bridging Blockchain technology,digital assets and Web3 with the real economy.
Hashkey Group is one of Hong Kong’s first SFC-licensed virtual assets trading platforms. It also has a digital assets custody and a venture investment business. Hashkey Group has worked closely with the Arkreen network to provide a range of services, including business model consulting, industrial development, research reports, and economic model design. Haskey Group and Arkreen launched the Web3 DePIN Hong Kong initiative globally at the 2023 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival in April. Aiming to work with DePIN ecological projects, builders, investment research institutions, and equipment manufacturers to jointly promote the development of the DePIN ecosystem in Hong Kong and build Hong Kong into a hub for the global DePIN ecosystem.” Chiang remarked.
King Leung, the Head of Financial Services and Fintech at Invest Hong Kong had the distinct honor of hosting the showcase event. He set the stage for impactful projects by emphasizing their potential to address critical global challenges, saying, “Now, think about climate change. And think about how we can use blockchain digital assets to change the world. And this is exactly what HashKey and Arkreen are trying to accomplish.”
Leo Lin, Founder of Arkreen Network, in collaboration with Anna Liu, General Manager of Tokenisation, Hashkey Group, conducted Project Showcases to emphasize the positive impact on Hong Kong and unveiled ambitious initiatives in Web3 and DePIN Emerging Frontiers, setting the stage for DePIN and ReFI’s new journey.
Ms. Anna Liu, the General Manager of Tokenization at Hashkey Group, highlighted their advisory and execution of various tokenization projects across diverse domains, emphasizing their key focus on DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) in Hong Kong. Hashkey Group aims not only to provide compliant and efficient virtual asset trading platforms but also to serve as a bridge connecting the digital and real economies, supporting innovation and contributing to financial market development. Projects like Arkreen are just the beginning, and they plan to delve deeper into Web3 initiatives to empower the local economy, with a promise to share more progress in the coming year.
Leo Lin, the Founder of Arkreen Network, shed light on the partnership with Hashkey Group and the mission to spearhead the development of the DePIN ecosystem in Hong Kong, envisioning the city as a global hub for this innovative ecosystem. “Arkreen is a Web3-enabled renewable energy data infrastructure network with the goal of utilizing energy data for carbon neutrality applications. Arkreen encompasses both the supply and demand sides. On the supply side, Arkreen leverages bottom-up community involvement to aggregate energy data. For example, community builders could install IoT solutions to measure, report and validate the green energy generation data from the rooftop solar panel, which will become the proof for issuing the green certificate and also reward contributors to accelerate the supply side bootstrap. The goal is to connect millions of renewable energy resources worldwide in the next few years. On the demand side, Arkreen implements on-chain green certification tokenization and offset based on trustworthy energy data, which will bring higher liquidity, transparency, and a lower entry barrier for the voluntary carbon market, especially for those community climate actors who can use a tokenized green certificate for offset the carbon emission. Arkreen aims to establish this data-based on-chain tokenization and offset as the standard for carbon neutrality in the Web3 community, fostering an inclusive climate action network for the global community. We believe that DePIN methodologies, combined with digital solutions and Web3 technologies, will build a trusted digital asset network from the real world, which will also create more value back the real world.”
What is DePIN
DePIN, or Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks, refers to a global network of real, connected machines, devices, vehicles, or robots that provide goods and services to people and machines in the physical world. It’s a new way to build and maintain infrastructure in the physical world, using tokenization to coordinate and incentivize their bootstrapping phase.
DePIN introduces the PoPW (Proof of Physical Work) mechanism, engaging a group of volunteers incentivized with tokens for infrastructure construction and maintenance. Token rewards inspire contributors to deploy and uphold the infrastructure. DePIN follows a bottom-up approach, meaning the network is collectively owned by its participants rather than a small group of shareholders.
DePINs are built out in a decentralized way by individuals and communities all over the world for anyone to use. In return, these contributors receive financial compensation and ownership in the network co-built and benefit from the services they provide through token incentives.
DePIN projects can enjoy a positive flywheel effect where increased usage (demand-side) increases token price through burns or buybacks. This, in turn, offers extra incentive for supply-side contributors to further expand the investment on hardware as the value of the tokens increases.
In general, DePIN’s decentralized approach complements traditional top-down infrastructure building, making the process fairer and more efficient.
What is Arkreen
DePIN acts as a bridge between the physical and digital realms. Web3 enables the tokenization of various connected hardware, like energy resources, electric vehicles, power plugs, or storage batteries, allowing us to own and earn from them. By efficiently organizing millions of individuals in a decentralized manner to build and maintain DePIN hardware, a completely new category of real-world assets (RWAs) is formed.
Arkreen is exactly such a community-driven and community-owned decentralized, inclusive climate action network rooted in renewable energy data. DePIN isn’t a new trend; it goes back to the early days of blockchain. It combines Web3 and AIoT technologies to create a decentralized, smart contract-based infrastructure network. We’ve been working on the connection between IoT devices and blockchain since 2018.
The issue of climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions stands as one of the world’s most pressing challenges. It’s imperative that governments, organizations, and individuals all take appropriate steps to combat global warming. While governments and major corporations worldwide have already integrated ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) considerations into their core social responsibilities, the concept of individual voluntary carbon reduction has yet to achieve meaningful scalability in the realm of climate action. Arkreen, built upon a massive number of individual participants, establishes a green asset issuance and absorption network grounded in renewable energy data, facilitating the consolidation of individual efforts into a substantial contribution toward carbon neutrality.
Being a decentralized energy data infrastructure network, Arkreen, like all DePIN networks, encompasses both the supply and demand sides, creating a closed-loop supply-demand ecosystem.
The supply side of Arkreen primarily consists of data representing individual environmentally friendly actions, including activities like household solar power generation, energy-efficient home air conditioning, and the use of electric vehicles. These green actions and their impact are quantified to generate data reflecting the contributions of these actions in the physical world, referred to as PoPW (Proof of Physical Work). This data is transmitted to the Arkreen network through the Internet of Things for validation and is globally recorded on the public DePIN blockchain. It then becomes a reliable climate action footprint for participants.
This PoPW data not only serves as an endorsement for issuing green assets but also forms the basis for rewarding contributors with utility tokens for their climate actions. For instance, in the case of household solar power generation, the electricity produced is collected, measured, and reported to the Arkreen network for verification and registration. Based on this data, tokenized green assets are issued that correspond to the amount of electricity generated. These green assets have the same nature as Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). However, traditional REC registration and issuance methods are costly and challenging to reach a large number of dispersed individual participants. Arkreen employs IoT and blockchain technology to issue tokenized green certificate assets, enabling widespread participation by individual users in a globally inclusive climate action initiative.
Throughout the development of the Arkreen Network, rewards are distributed as incentives to participants engaged in climate action, motivating a broad user community in developing countries to expedite the deployment of renewable energy facilities and the adoption of carbon reduction initiatives. This, in turn, facilitates the swift accumulation of additional green assets.
In contrast to the supply side, Arkreen’s issuance of green assets on the demand side primarily targets a diverse and fragmented community of carbon offset participants. Arkreen facilitates a voluntary tokenized green certificate asset marketplace, allowing individual participants to purchase and redeem green certificate assets voluntarily, according to their abilities and needs, to offset a corresponding amount of carbon emissions. For example, bitcoin network has historically consumed a substantial amount of electricity generated from fossil fuels. To gradually offset these historical carbon emissions, community participants can voluntarily acquire Arkreen’s green certificate assets, helping offset a portion of bitcoin network’s carbon footprint. In appreciation of their contribution to making bitcoin network more eco-friendly, participants may also receive NFT rewards.
Expanding on this, participants in developed nations mitigate their carbon footprints by acquiring green assets, which, in turn, directs benefits to those on the supply side in developing countries who are actively engaged in climate action. This incentivizes them to implement more eco-friendly behaviors, creating a closed-loop supply-demand system for climate action. The utility token, serving as fees for the issuance and redemption of green assets, continually captures the value generated by climate action in the network, ensuring its token value aligns with low-carbon behaviors.
Arkreen revolves around the tokenization of renewable green assets, placing fragmented individual participants at its core. Employing the DePIN operational methodology, it actively shapes a versatile supply-demand market, fostering inclusivity in climate action. Embracing a “collective effort” ethos, it serves as a valuable addition to the conventional green financial system, benefiting individual participants from around the world who contribute to addressing climate change.
The Background of DePIN Hong Kong Initiative
During the Hong Kong Web3 Festival on April 13, 2023, Dr. Xiao Feng, Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain and Hashkey Group, and Leo LIN, founder of arkreen, joined hands with participants from the global DePIN projects, esteemed investment organizations, and research institutions in the DePIN sector, hardware manufacturers, industrial partners, and the DePIN community builders to launch the DePIN Hong Kong Initiative.
This initiative aims to vigorously boost the growth of the DePIN community and ecosystem by leveraging Hong Kong’s and the Greater Bay Area’s robust foundations. Its goal is to facilitate the integration of various industries with Web3 innovation through the DePIN model, allowing Web3 developers to discover valuable real-world applications through the DePIN project. The envisioned outcome is a more secure, efficient, and reliable DePIN ecosystem, which will distinguish itself in Hong Kong’s Web3 landscape and make a significant contribution to the development of real-world economy in both Hong Kong and worldwide.
Why is DePIN a pivotal tech driver at Hong Kong FinTech Week 2023
Hong Kong is determined to establish itself as the leading Web3 hub, implementing various initiatives such as the Web3 task force, virtual asset service provider licensing, and fostering innovation and collaboration, all aimed at cultivating a Web3-friendly ecosystem in the city.
DePIN supports a global community in constructing essential real-world infrastructure crucial for the physical economy. It’s emerging as a major trend in the Web3 community. Additionally, the DePIN project relies on hardware to validate physical work, closely tied to supply chains and industrial resources, benefiting from Hong Kong’s proximity to the Greater Bay Area’s manufacturing hub. Furthermore, Hong Kong’s favorable Web3 policies have attracted significant global investments and accelerated its Web3 advancements. These factors create an opportune moment for the DePIN Hong Kong Initiative to take center stage in driving Physical Economic Growth with the DePIN-Enabled World’s Largest Manufacturers’ Community in the Greater Bay Area.
