This program not only provides up to HK$500,000 in funding but also significantly lowers the entry barriers for innovative enterprises in a compliant environment through official endorsement and resource connectivity.Author and source: Cyberport
As Hong Kong continues to advance its development as an international digital assets hub, blockchain and Web3 technologies are rapidly permeating traditional finance, cultural entertainment, and other sectors, injecting new momentum into the local innovation ecosystem. In this context, the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation’s Blockchain and Digital Assets Pilot Grant Scheme aims to provide financial support to blockchain and Web3 startups, facilitate real-world pilot testing of high-impact applications, and foster deep collaborations with local major institutions.
The program will be officially launched in June 2025, with the core objective of providing funding and real-world application scenarios to blockchain and Web3.0 projects that are exemplary, highly impactful, and have benchmark potential. By promoting testing and practical implementation of these projects, the initiative aims to advance tokenization and blockchain technology from concept to real-world use, addressing pain points in the physical economy at multiple levels. Each qualified pilot project may receive up to 80% funding, with a maximum grant of HK$500,000. The program received over 200 applications, and ultimately selected nine projects spanning critical areas such as real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, stablecoin infrastructure, and anti-money laundering for digital currencies. Cyberport also actively encourages participating companies to collaborate with established sponsors to jointly test and validate the commercial viability of applications in real-world environments.
After the pilot program ended, all nine selected companies demonstrated significant commercial value and market potential. According to post-program survey results, all participating companies expect to achieve broader customer adoption within the next 12 months, and nearly all reported that their solutions have already been adopted or will be adopted within a year by project sponsors or other potential clients. In addition to driving commercial deployment, the program served as a bridge to foster collaboration between startups and large enterprises, effectively strengthening corporate partnership networks and technological capabilities. The survey revealed that a majority of participating companies indicated the program successfully helped them establish new partnerships.
As Hong Kong’s largest blockchain and digital assets community, since establishing its Web3 Hub in 2023, Cyberport has brought together over 310 related companies from 19 countries and regions, including one publicly listed company and three unicorns, spanning fields such as fintech, cybersecurity, and smart cities. Additionally, under the Cyberport Investors Network, Cyberport launched the Web3.0 Investment Circle (W3IC), which has already attracted nearly 50 investment institutions. This initiative not only provides financial support but also significantly lowers the barriers to entry for innovative enterprises in a compliant environment through official endorsement and resource connectivity, injecting strong momentum into Hong Kong’s digital assets ecosystem.
ME News recently interviewed two high-quality projects supported by the initiative—DigiFT Hong Kong and Moon Lab—邀请 both CEOs to share insights on their project highlights, pilot outcomes, and their authentic experiences with the Cyberport program. The goal is to provide valuable reference for more Web3 teams and attract additional high-quality projects to submit applications and participate in the selection process.
DigiFT: Automating institutional fund subscriptions and redemptions on-chain
DigiFT Hong Kong is a regulated on-chain exchange and distribution platform licensed in both Hong Kong and Singapore. Its pilot project in collaboration with UBS and Chainlink focuses on the subscription and redemption processes for tokenized funds, demonstrating how institutional-grade operations can be securely and compliantly executed on an Ethereum permissioned chain infrastructure using smart contracts.
Henry Zhang, Founder and Group CEO of DigiFT, stated that the fund industry has long faced challenges with core processes—such as subscription, redemption, settlement, reconciliation, and investor services—being heavily reliant on manual labor and fragmented systems, leading to delays, increased costs, and insufficient transparency. The project chose subscription and redemption as its entry point because they are the most critical operational环节 in fund distribution. Once automated, transparent, and interoperable, these processes can lay a solid foundation for the entire fund lifecycle.
During the pilot, DigiFT, as an on-chain fund distributor, uses smart contracts to coordinate message flow between upstream and downstream parties, gradually moving tokenized fund operations toward full automation without compromising institutional governance requirements. Henry Zhang emphasized: “This pilot aims to demonstrate that fund operations can be automated through interactions between smart contracts, while still remaining within a regulated and properly governed framework. We are not removing controls—we are embedding them more efficiently into the process.”
The pilot results demonstrated that orders on-chain became more transparent, traceable, and instantly visible, effectively reducing manual errors, delays, and reconciliation challenges inherent in traditional processes. For financial institutions, this provides a replicable blueprint for programmatically executing fund management workflows—from subscription and redemption to compliance reporting—on-chain while preserving existing governance standards. For regulators, it establishes a reference model for blockchain-based fund operations operating within an oversight framework. For investors, it means shorter settlement cycles, clearer proof of ownership, and improved transaction visibility. DigiFT leveraged this pilot to successfully validate an automated on-chain pathway for fund subscriptions and redemptions under a regulated framework, offering a replicable case study for the large-scale deployment of institutional-grade tokenized funds.
Henry Zhang believes that the most important aspect of this pilot is demonstrating that regulated tokenization does not need to be confined to closed systems. Open, interoperable infrastructure can effectively connect banks, asset managers, custodians, and digital asset platforms, paving the way for the industry to move from isolated pilots to large-scale adoption.
Regarding support from the Cyberport initiative, Henry Zhang highly affirmed: “Yes, it has been extremely helpful. Such programs provide critical support for innovative yet practical projects to move from concept to reality. In our case, Cyberport facilitated meaningful collaboration between institutions and technology partners, sending a strong signal that Hong Kong strongly supports responsible innovation in digital assets. This ecosystem support is vital for both individual businesses and the broader market’s development.”
Moon Lab: Blockchain + NFT + DID Solutions to Tackle Counterfeit Concert Tickets
Moon Lab focuses on the cultural and entertainment sector, addressing Hong Kong’s long-standing issues of counterfeit tickets, ticket scalping, and duplicate ticketing by innovatively combining DID (Decentralized Identity) with NFT tickets. This approach transforms ticket fraud management from an operational challenge into a technically controllable solution, marking the first validation in the local market of Web3 technology’s feasibility in large-scale concert scenarios.
According to Jack Chen, CEO of Moon Lab, the core of the solution involves generating a DID for each ticket buyer and issuer through identity verification, ensuring users clearly know they are purchasing tickets from an officially certified entity, thereby eliminating counterfeit tickets at the source. Additionally, all ticket credentials are issued on the blockchain in the form of NFTs, making it impossible for even certified institutions to issue excess tickets, significantly enhancing the transparency and trustworthiness of the ticketing system.
To enable ordinary users to experience seamless usage, Moon Lab has designed the entire process to be identical to traditional Web2 applications: users log in, complete facial recognition, and their tickets are automatically stored in a “ticket wallet” after purchase; entry requires only presenting a QR code for verification. Jack Chen said, “We want our customers to feel absolutely no presence of blockchain or Web3 technology. Although every step involves blockchain, ensuring traceability and high trustworthiness, the user experience must be frictionless. This is the very essence of why we created Moon Lab.”
To address users' concerns about security, Jack Chen explained that all transactions are recorded on the Polygon L2 chain with accompanying Polygonscan transaction hashes, allowing users to verify them at any time—ensuring a seamless front-end experience while maintaining full transparency on the back end.
After the pilot run, the results were significant. Jack Chen noted that the primary beneficiaries were ordinary audiences, whose rights were most directly protected; secondly, artists, their management teams, and event organizers also benefited, as the system technically prevented counterfeit ticket-related negative publicity, effectively safeguarding brand image and public sentiment.
Moon Lab became a startup in the Cyberport Incubation Programme approximately three years ago, and last year successfully partnered with organizations such as HKT to implement its initiatives through the funding program. Jack Chen shared that the program’s greatest value lies in providing official endorsement, significantly lowering the barrier to business communication between startups and large institutions, while also absorbing some of the early financial risks during the Web3 industry winter, making it easier for partners to secure internal project approvals and substantially accelerating project progress.
For teams interested in applying, Jack Chen advises: “The biggest appeal is the official endorsement and financial support. With the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation’s credibility, startups can more easily engage with large enterprises, and the opposing party’s required resource investment can be significantly reduced. We recommend that everyone first connect with the HKSTP team to ensure your proposal aligns with Hong Kong’s market development priorities.”
Conclusion: Ecosystem Support Accelerates Hong Kong’s Digital Asset Innovation
The successful implementations of DigiFT and Moon Lab fully demonstrate that the Cyberport Blockchain and Digital Assets Pilot Grant Scheme is not merely financial support, but a powerful ecosystem enabler. It helps projects gain official recognition, lowers collaboration barriers, mitigates early-stage risks, and sets a benchmark for Hong Kong’s digital assets market.
Li Yizheng, Director of Blockchain and Digital Assets at Cyberport, said: “Whether it’s institutional-grade RWA tokenization or compliant Web3 applications in the cultural and entertainment sectors, this initiative provides critical support for innovative teams to move from concept to implementation. Cyberport will continue to align with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s development guidelines, maintain close communication with industry and regulators, and assist enterprises in conducting technology testing within a compliant framework through various industry events, sandboxes, and programs, continuously promoting the real-world adoption of blockchain technology and accelerating the growth of the local ecosystem.”
Teams working in Web3, RWA, compliant blockchain infrastructure, and other related fields are welcome to submit materials and participate in the evaluation if they have practical use cases and solutions addressing market pain points.
Those interested can visit the Cyberport official website for more details:
https://www.cyberport.hk/en-hk/entrepreneurship/web3_pilot_scheme/