Professor Jo’s Insights on RWA at Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2025

- Over 80,000 people attended the Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2025, with 250+ booths on display. - Professor Jo talked about changes in Bitcoin mining and how Hong Kong’s RWA pilot could boost the RWA market. [Unblock Media] The Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2025 was successfully held from April 6th to 9th at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC), attracting over 80,000 visitors, more than 250 exhibition booths, and over 300 side events showcasing innovations and future prospects in the Web3 and blockchain sectors. Professor Jo (@0xProfessorJo), an influential KOL known as the "DeFi farmer," who has been active in the DeFi and blockchain innovation areas after a decade-long career in acquisition finance, shared key insights from the festival via X (formerly Twitter). Citing George Chou, head of fintech at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), Professor Jo mentioned that over 20 assets were successfully tested in a regulatory sandbox since 2024, expressing confidence that the Real World Assets (RWA) sector will significantly expand through collaboration with investment firms. According to the Hong Kong financial regulator, various use cases are introducing new paradigms to the digital asset market. One example is the tokenization of commercial real estate and office rental income, which allows for more diversified investment opportunities. Another is the conversion of high-value assets such as art and sculptures into NFTs, enabling transparent ownership and greater liquidity. Additionally, parts of energy generation facilities are being tokenized to create long-term revenue models. In a tweet stating “Bitcoin reaching its peak,” Professor Jo analyzed that miners have been expanding their operations using Bitcoin-backed loans from late 2024 to early 2025, resulting in a more than 15% increase in hashrate and a 20% rise in loan volumes year-over-year according to data from Glassnode and CryptoQuant. This data directly impacts Bitcoin network security and mining difficulty. It also points to mining operations shifting to countries like the US and Ethiopia, with significant energy corporations such as Russia's Gazprom entering the mining industry. In his tweet “South Korea as the only buyer of altcoins,” Professor Jo noted that Chinese retail investors perceive ‘memecoins’ as fairer than ‘VC tokens,’ with the memecoin exchange GMGN experiencing significant growth. Additional information indicated that Chinese crypto VCs, which raised funds during 2020-2021, were selling off altcoins in anticipation of their fund liquidation in 2025. Meanwhile, the DeFi payment system ‘X-Pay’ is preparing for an IPO, and several altcoin projects are adopting models combined with NFTs, allowing investors to experience both digital asset ownership and community participation. This shift highlights a transition from simple investment products to models generating real revenue and B2B business models. Lastly, Professor Jo evaluated Binance's CZ's exploration of using AI agents to facilitate trading and providing development direction guidelines for some projects within the BNB ecosystem, commending the innovative attempts to bridge traditional finance and blockchain technologies. The event, enriched by Professor Jo's sharp insights, addressed key issues such as real asset tokenization cases, Bitcoin mining loans and hashrate increases, altcoin investment strategies and NFT-integrated models, and trading innovation through AI agents. Investors and global experts gained deep insights into the potential and practical innovation models of Web3 and blockchain technologies, raising expectations for further developments in this field.