China’s tech talent rides global Web3 wave despite crypto ban, turns to Singapore and Hong Kong for next big push
- Web3 developers have flourished quietly despite China’s cryptocurrency crackdown, but more are heading overseas for funding and development
- Hong Kong and Singapore have emerged as top relocation destinations for mainland-based Web3 start-ups, given their more open crypto environment
Jensen Li, a Beijing-based former developer at ByteDance, meets other like-minded enthusiasts regularly at Metaspace, a Web3-theme cafe located in the centre of Haidian district.
He walked away from a job with an annual salary of 850,000 yuan (US$120,000) offered by TikTok’s parent company two months ago to found 1435Club, an online space connecting Chinese talent with Web3 opportunities.
“The exponential growth of Chinese internet companies in the past decade is unlikely to be replicated since the current market is already highly saturated, and the macro environment friendly to innovation and economic boom is now history,” Li said.
China intensified its crackdown on cryptocurrencies in October 2021, saying such transactions were illegal and liable for prosecution. Virtual tokens such as bitcoin and ether were not legal tender, the central bank said, and thus “should not, and are not capable of being circulated in the market and used like currencies”.
Despite this, transactions related to digital assets have continued within its jurisdiction – and some have even boomed.
From June 2021 to July 2022, crypto transactions totalled US$220 billion in China, the fourth highest worldwide, and top in East Asia, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. Its 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index, a comprehensive metric measuring countries’ usage of crypto services, showed China ranked 10th globally, up from 13th place last year but down from fourth in 2020.
