April marked a structural shift in Hong Kong’s position within the global digital asset landscape, as the city rapidly solidified its role as a leading hub for regulated Web3 innovation. A series of coordinated policy moves signaled this transformation. On April 10, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) issued its first stablecoin issuer licenses, with major financial institutions including Standard Chartered-backed “Anchor” and HSBC among the early approvals from a pool of 36 applicants. Shortly after, on April 19, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) further expanded the regulatory framework by permitting tokenized authorized investment products to be traded on licensed virtual asset platforms in secondary markets.
These developments represented more than regulatory progress—they laid the groundwork for a fully compliant digital asset ecosystem. For Eddie Chong, Chairman of the SFI (Stable Coin Infrastructure) Ecosystem Foundation, this moment marks the long-anticipated alignment of policy and infrastructure. His long-term vision—centered on stablecoins as the core settlement layer powering real-world assets (RWA) and artificial intelligence—has now entered a phase of real-world execution.
Building Where the Industry Was Missing Foundations
Eddie Chong’s approach to Web3 has consistently focused on infrastructure gaps rather than market narratives. As Chairman of SFI, founder of X Infinity, and Executive Chairman of HK Web3 Club, he operates across a global network spanning Asia, Europe, and the Americas, with influence across more than 100 companies and a large-scale entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Rather than reacting to market cycles, Chong has positioned himself ahead of them.
His entry into Bitcoin in 2015 revealed early limitations in blockchain scalability for payment use cases, prompting him to build X Infinity, a proprietary blockchain infrastructure initiative. During the 2019–2020 market downturn, instead of retreating, he shifted focus toward RWA—anticipating that the future of blockchain would depend on integration with real-world assets.
That conviction has since grown into a $5 billion RWA portfolio covering more than 400 investments. By 2026, he co-founded SFI with a singular focus: solving the structural barriers to RWA adoption, particularly liquidity and compliant user access. Without these, tokenized assets cannot function as real financial instruments.
SFI: A Multi-Layer Infrastructure for Value Flow
SFI is designed as a full-stack ecosystem rather than a standalone platform. Its purpose is to connect stablecoins, RWA markets, AI systems, and real-world consumption into a unified value network.
At its core is Solulu Club, providing liquidity infrastructure with over 200,000 active users and deep transactional engagement. Surrounding it are five interconnected components:
- Solulu Pay, enabling compliant fiat and crypto payment flows to bridge traditional finance and digital assets.
- Caviar, a luxury Web3 commerce platform where stablecoins are used for real-world consumption.
- COPX DAO, applying AI-driven quantitative strategies to optimize trading and liquidity efficiency.
- RWA Incubator, supporting compliant asset tokenization and institutional onboarding.
- RWA Exchange, enabling secondary market liquidity and price discovery for tokenized assets.
Together, SFI, COPX DAO, and Caviar form what Chong calls the “Iron Triangle”—a system where infrastructure, value generation, and consumption continuously reinforce one another. Stablecoins function as the settlement backbone connecting the entire ecosystem.
Hong Kong’s Policy Shift as a Scaling Catalyst
For years, RWA development faced two persistent constraints: lack of regulated access points and limited liquidity infrastructure. Hong Kong’s April regulatory expansion directly addressed both.
Stablecoin licensing provided a compliant issuance and circulation framework, while secondary market approval for tokenized products introduced genuine liquidity channels for digital assets. This dual advancement positioned Hong Kong as one of the most important regulated hubs for Web3 development globally.
SFI leveraged this momentum through active participation in the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, where it showcased an integrated ecosystem spanning payments, trading, and asset tokenization.
During industry discussions, Chong highlighted a core industry weakness: tokenization alone does not guarantee utility. Without users and liquidity, assets remain inactive. He emphasized that SFI’s advantage lies in its existing user base and its ability to provide real-world consumption pathways, particularly for high-value stablecoin use cases.
At the same time, SFI continues to expand its global compliance framework, holding licenses in jurisdictions including the United States and Canada, with ongoing progress in the UAE and Hong Kong. This compliance architecture is designed to serve both internal operations and external ecosystem participants.
The Next Evolution: RWA Meets AI Systems
According to Chong, the current RWA expansion phase is only the foundation of a larger transformation. The next stage will be defined by the 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 evolving from analytical tools into autonomous economic participants capable of executing transactions and managing capital flows.
Chong views this convergence as structurally inevitable. RWA provides the underlying value base, while AI provides the intelligence layer that activates and optimizes that value.
Within SFI, this integration is already operational. COPX DAO uses AI models to automate trading strategies, including hedging and arbitrage, generating yield from tokenized assets. At the same time, AI-driven analytics provide real-time pricing signals based on market behavior, asset fundamentals, and sentiment data—addressing long-standing inefficiencies in valuation systems.
His framework remains consistent: compliance forms the foundation, stablecoins serve as the axis, AI acts as the engine, and RWA supplies the fuel. Together, they create a self-sustaining economic flywheel.
From Strategy to Systemic Infrastructure
Eddie Chong’s trajectory reflects a consistent philosophy of building ahead of demand—identifying structural gaps and developing infrastructure before mass adoption arrives.
With SFI, that philosophy is now transitioning into a functioning ecosystem that connects finance, technology, and real-world utility. Hong Kong’s regulatory acceleration has provided the external catalyst, but the long-term trajectory depends on scalable infrastructure capable of sustaining liquidity, compliance, and adoption.
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 long-term economic function and real-world value creation.
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
