Polkadot recognized as a key enterprise by the Hong Kong government, HIC announces three new investments in the Polkadot ecosystem!

In the latest PolkaWorld English livestream, we brought three major announcements! Each one is closely related to the global expansion and real-world implementation of the Polkadot ecosystem.

First, Polkadot has officially become the first blockchain ecosystem to be recognized by the Hong Kong government as a "Strategic Enterprise," joining the OASES program led by the Financial Secretary of Hong Kong. This is not only the first time a Web3 project has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with a government in the form of a DAO, but it also marks Polkadot's transition from on-chain governance to institutional cooperation in the real world.

Secondly, Max from Harbor Industrial Capital (HIC) revealed three brand new Polkadot ecosystem investments: from the Latin American RWA fintech project Joinn, to the European Web3 gaming growth platform N3MUS, and a third yet-to-be-announced project — HIC is using capital to drive real user growth and diverse application adoption in the Polkadot ecosystem.

The last topic we discussed was the recently concluded Hong Kong Fintech Week. As one of the most influential fintech events in the Asia-Pacific region, Polkadot made its debut on the main stage as a "Strategic Enterprise," joining senior Hong Kong government officials, OASES representatives, and Cyberport to discuss financial innovation and application scenarios for blockchain technology.

From investment to policy, from ecosystem to cooperation, this conversation not only showcased Polkadot's technical strength but also reflected its new path in globalization, institutionalization, and real economic connectivity.

Keep reading to see the full exciting discussion!

Kristen: Hello everyone, welcome to this episode of the Polkadot Roundtable. In our monthly roundtables, we do a monthly review and invite some guests to talk about the latest progress of their projects, as well as some hot topics in the Polkadot ecosystem. In this episode, we have Max from HIC, Jun Zhou from Papermoon, and Cris from OpenGuild.

This episode we will discuss topics such as investment, the Vietnam market, and the latest progress of REVM. First, I'd like to ask the two guests to introduce themselves. Who would like to go first?

Max: I'm Max from Harbor Industrial Capital, and I also represent PolkaPort East. Today we'll focus on some things about PolkaPort East, as we have some very exciting news to share recently.

Jun: Hello everyone, I'm Jun from Papermoon, currently serving as a DevRel Engineer in the team. Papermoon mainly provides developer relations support for Parity and maintains related developer documentation. Today I'll also share some recent progress and key highlights from our team this month.

Cris: Hi everyone, this is my first time participating in a PolkaWorld livestream. Actually, I've been working in the Polkadot ecosystem for a while and am quite familiar with everyone here. I'm currently at OpenGuild, which is a developer community focused on the South Asian market. We host various events locally, such as meetups, hackathons, and bootcamps, aiming to help more developers learn about and adopt the Polkadot tech stack.

Recently, we've also been focusing on recruiting more developers for Polkadot Hub and actively helping projects apply for Web3 Foundation Grants and Velocity Labs' Defi Builder funding program. In fact, just yesterday, we received some good news — a project we mentored successfully received approval from the Defi Builder funding program! They were one of only five selected teams out of more than 80 applicants, which is a huge encouragement for us.

Polkadot Recognized by Hong Kong Government as a "Strategic Enterprise": First Blockchain Ecosystem to Join the OASES Program

Kristen: Okay, let's start with the first part of today's discussion! Recently, we've seen a lot of new developments from HIC and several announcements, and the community is very curious about these updates. Especially about Polkadot becoming the first blockchain ecosystem to be recognized by the Hong Kong government as a "Strategic Enterprise." Can you explain what exactly a "Strategic Enterprise" is? What does this mean for the Polkadot ecosystem, and what practical benefits will it bring?

Max: Actually, PolkaPort East has been working on this for quite a long time — we've been at it for over a year before finally obtaining this "Strategic Enterprise" status.

In Chinese, it's called "重点企业," and it's managed by a department under the Hong Kong Financial Secretary — OASES (Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises).

Simply put, a "Strategic Enterprise" refers to a company recognized by the Financial Secretary's department as having special strategic significance for Hong Kong's development, especially in technology and fintech. As a result, this department gives these companies special attention, such as:

• Providing high-level government resources and policy consultation opportunities;
• Inviting companies to participate in important exchange events;
• Offering communication and feedback channels in policy-making.

This is actually a very valuable program. For example, international giants like ARM (chip manufacturer), GSK (GlaxoSmithKline), social media platform Xiaohongshu, and major telecom companies like China Telecom or Unicom are also included. Not all companies can join this program — the selection process is very strict, and you must fully prove that your company is strategically significant to Hong Kong and can bring value to local technology and industry to qualify for these unique resource connections.

The three co-founders of PolkaPort East — myself, Vincent, and Thibaut — have been communicating with the Hong Kong government for over a year, and we finally succeeded. Two weeks ago, we attended the official signing ceremony at the Hong Kong government headquarters, joining other Strategic Enterprise representatives and officially becoming part of the OASES program.

Let me add one more thing: At the signing ceremony, Polkadot also attached great importance, sending Web3 Foundation council member Kenneth to Hong Kong to represent Polkadot at the ceremony. He flew in from the UK specifically for this, which is really rare. I think this shows that Polkadot's leadership values this opportunity and also sees Hong Kong as a strategic hub for business development and resource investment, and is willing to send representatives to participate and seize the opportunities this cooperation brings. We're very happy to have the support of Polkadot's top management.

Kristen: That's exactly what I wanted to ask. Polkadot is a blockchain project, so how did you manage to cooperate with the government in the form of an "enterprise"?

Max: Yes, this was actually the biggest challenge we faced at the beginning. Because, think about it, we were dealing with the Hong Kong government, whose mindset is still relatively traditional. When we first introduced Polkadot as an "open, decentralized, permissionless system," they thought it sounded good, but immediately asked, "So who do we sign the contract with? What is the specific company name?" At that time, we could only say, "Actually, we don't have a formal entity." Of course, we have the Web3 Foundation, but that's just a foundation; and Parity, which is the technical development team. But neither can represent the entire Polkadot blockchain itself.

So we went back and forth for a long time, thinking about how to solve this problem. Later, we realized there was a very suitable entity called the Polkadot Community Foundation (PCF). It's a company registered in the Cayman Islands, and according to its charter, it can represent the DAO in executing real-world matters. In other words, if the DAO makes a decision on-chain, PCF can implement it in the real world.

Actually, PCF has been used in similar scenarios before, but I won't go into details. At the time, we realized this was an ideal way to bring blockchain into the real world.

This is a great example: a blockchain organization signing a strategic cooperation agreement with a government agency — this is quite rare globally.

A few months ago, we initiated a proposal on-chain, proposing that PCF set up a subsidiary in Hong Kong and sign the agreement with the Hong Kong government on behalf of the community. This proposal was later approved by vote, meaning the DAO community agreed and authorized this cooperation.

After that, PCF officially set up a local subsidiary in Hong Kong, because the Hong Kong government required the signing party to be a locally registered company, not an overseas one. Once all preparations were complete, about two weeks ago we officially signed the cooperation agreement with the Hong Kong government.

So this matter has finally come to fruition, and we're all very excited — we believe this will bring many new growth opportunities for Hong Kong and for Polkadot's development in Hong Kong.

Kristen: Yes, this actually sets a great example, showing that the Web3 ecosystem can fully cooperate with Web2 enterprises and even governments. This is a very meaningful case.

HIC Announces Three New Polkadot Ecosystem Investments, Betting on Real User Growth in the Polkadot Ecosystem

Kristen: Recently, HIC also announced a very important investment. Can you give us more details? Which projects were invested in, and what is the logic behind them?

Max: Of course. What I just talked about was my role at PolkaPort East, but my other "hat" in the Polkadot ecosystem is HIC (Harbor Industrial Capital). You're right, we've recently completed three investments, two of which have been officially announced, and the third has been completed but not yet made public.

I'll talk about the two that have been announced: one is called Joinn, the other is N3MUS.

First, Joinn. This is a fintech RWA (Real World Asset) project from Latin America that I personally am very optimistic about — it's also our first investment in Latin America. By the way, we'll be going to Buenos Aires in two weeks for the Sub0 event, and we'll be expanding more actively into the South American market in the future.

Joinn mainly focuses on cross-border remittances and payments, which is a very important financial need in South America. But it's not just about transfers — it also allows users to directly invest in various RWAs (real world assets) through the app, such as tokenized versions of US Treasuries. Although tokenized Treasuries are not new technology, for South American users, it has been difficult to access such well-known, large-scale assets in the past — after all, not everyone is in the US, and not everyone has channels to participate in such investments.

Now, through Joinn's app, users can buy tokenized Treasuries and make cross-border remittances in South America, and it also integrates various local fiat on- and off-ramps, making it very practical. The founder also made a deep impression on us — he was the founder of the largest bitcoin mining company in South America, with solid industry experience (though he's no longer in mining), and later ran a large crypto exchange in Venezuela. That exchange was later shut down by the local government (because the Venezuelan government is not very crypto-friendly), but all investors' funds were safely returned. After that, he and his team started over and decided to build a new project on Polkadot, which was one of the reasons we were willing to invest — we only invest in projects built on Polkadot.

We first met them at a Swiss accelerator project, Polimec, when they were still in the early stages. After several discussions, we decided to invest in them — this is the first officially announced investment.

The second investment was announced just a week ago, called N3MUS. This company is completely different from Joinn but equally promising. They are building a player acquisition platform for Web3 games — simply put, a leaderboard-based competition system to help Web3 games attract more players. After all, the biggest pain point for every Web3 game is not having enough players. N3MUS acts as a "connector," helping game projects acquire users and improve retention. Their growth rate is amazing — I can't remember the exact numbers, but you can check them out; their data is impressive. And, they're also building on Polkadot.

Kristen: How do they attract users?

Max: Mainly through a tournament-style leaderboard. In short, they create these leaderboards, and players who participate in games can earn token rewards — sometimes their own tokens. Through this mechanism, players may join because of one game but are then guided to try other developers' games, creating cross-game user flow. I think this track is very interesting and has a lot of potential.

They were originally a multi-chain project, but after our in-depth discussions and investment, they have started building their core infrastructure on Polkadot. In the future, their smart contract central repository will be deployed on Polkadot, which I'm very excited about, because such projects have great growth potential. If we want to see user interaction and transaction volume grow on Polkadot, bringing in Web3 gaming users is a key direction, and they're doing an excellent job in this area.

Their team is from the Netherlands, we've met several times, and the investment was officially announced recently. There should be more updates coming soon.

Speaking of gaming in the Polkadot ecosystem, there's another topic — Mythical Games, which just announced a new partnership with Worldcoin (this news was released today). Of course, opinions are divided — some see it as positive, others are more reserved, and I won't comment too much for now.

But I want to emphasize: Polkadot's gaming ecosystem should develop in a diversified way, not relying solely on a single big company like Mythical. Projects like N3MUS, which aggregate and help small and even indie games grow quickly, actually bring more vitality to the ecosystem. That's why I'm especially excited about this investment, and I believe you'll hear more and more about them in the future.

Kristen: Awesome! I did a livestream in Chinese yesterday and got a great response — some viewers commented that they're already playing FIFA Rival and Penguin Games. I was surprised; our community is really active, and the new projects you mentioned are very promising. I hope they all bring more new users to Polkadot.

Polkadot Appears at Hong Kong Fintech Week

Kristen: Let's talk about the last topic, the upcoming Hong Kong Fintech Week. We'll all be there to support, right? Can you introduce the background of this event? What kind of fintech summit is it? Will blockchain projects like Polkadot be a focus?

Max: I think it's very important for Polkadot to participate in these traditional fintech events — not just limit ourselves to pure crypto conferences like Token2049. Of course, those events are great, but they're more like "inside the crypto bubble." Events like Fintech Week, which bring together traditional financial institutions, tech companies, and regulators, provide a much broader stage for Polkadot.

Hong Kong Fintech Week is a huge event. You'll see many traditional financial giants, like major banks, exhibiting their fintech products. Of course, there are also many crypto companies, but in the underlying blockchain field, Polkadot is undoubtedly one of the most eye-catching.

This event is coordinated and organized by PolkaPort East, with support from the Polkadot event bounty. And this time, it's truly a regional collaboration: Kristen, you'll be coming to Hong Kong in person, which we're very excited about! Although Cris can't attend, Patricia from OpenGuild will represent your team, which is great. In addition, some teams from the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region will also attend, making it a sizable presence. I think this event will open up many new growth opportunities for Polkadot in Hong Kong and surrounding areas, especially as we've just secured the OASES Strategic Enterprise partnership, making this Fintech Week a perfect opportunity to promote this achievement.

At the event, Vincent will join OASES (Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises) representatives and Cyberport representatives on a government official cooperation forum. Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan will also deliver the opening speech in person, meaning we'll be discussing Polkadot's value and innovative applications with senior Hong Kong government officials.

I will also participate in a VC-focused forum, discussing Web3 investment opportunities with representatives from well-known VC firms in the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, I'll focus on promoting Polkadot and sharing its huge potential in investment and ecosystem development. Overall, I'm very much looking forward to my trip to Hong Kong next week.

At the time of publication, PolkaWorld, OpenGuild, and PolkaPort East have successfully concluded their participation in Hong Kong Fintech Week on behalf of Polkadot! Check out the event video below!