On December 18, Accumulus was licensed by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) for conducting Type 1 (dealing in securities) and 7 (providing automated trading services) regulated activities under the Securities and Futures Ordinance, as well as for operating a virtual asset exchange under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance, capping an endeavour toward which we have striven these two years. However, this is by no means the end. As continuing efforts edge us closer to our vision set out two years ago, this is only the end of our journey’s beginning.

Our pursuit

Goaded by a reiteration of deepening reform at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and supported by more than 300 encompassing reform tasks, China’s economy managed a reasonably fast increase in 2024 while under strain. We, a Web 3.0 offshoot of a Chinese digital economy company that helps 110 million people from 139 countries and regions find employment and hope for a better tomorrow, have had a clearer view of our real economy’s robust strength, a more accurate perception of China’s confidence in elevating levels of opening up, and have reaffirmed our founding mission to invest in China. It is no coincidence that investing in the world’s largest and most vigorous market, one backed by 1.4 billion hopeful and resourceful consumers, is also an offer the world finds more and more plain and necessary. To take a long position in China, we have stationed ourselves in Hong Kong, hoping to also give such opportunities to those who came from China but without the means to do so. This opportunity they must take, for this allows them to complete their global investment portfolio and supplies the Web 3.0 industry with a fresh impetus for growth.

It is a path with Chinese characteristics for Web 3.0 to take root in the service of our real economy and channel the flow of growth drivers into an open and friendly China. And it is our mission and the industry’s mandate to march down that path. Specifically, we consider it the overarching principle of all our business activities to leverage the potential of Web 3.0 to serve China’s real economy and widen its international communications, to carry on with the teardown of walls and the buildup of the land. For that, we must convoke global investors who have seen the light of investing in China, identify those projects with inherent value and innate demand, ensure seamless international clearing and settlement for investments and profits, establish a beneficial cycle where profitable investments fund solid programs which require more investments, as well as demonstrate as a pilot program to the world how being long on China is both profitable and sensible. These requirements that we hold ourselves to are also what Web 3.0 must achieve for further growth and promise. With the traditional speculate-and-profiteer model in tatters, Web 3.0 needs investments in China to open up new Lebensraum and accompanying opportunities.

The next step

Inspired, encouraged, and guided by our parent company’s first-hand knowledge of how the digital economy may serve the real economy — obtained through over a decade of struggle and growth, coupled with close partnership with thousands of digital economy players — and its experience in improving the rule of law in new forms of business and employment, we aim to establish a think tank with frontline opinions and insightful ideas. We hope a concourse of representative entrepreneurs, industry experts, and other knowledgeable visionaries would focus on investing in China in the era of Web 3.0 and harnessing the industry’s resources for the continued development of our real economy and better international communications. Together, we would explore growth possibilities in a bottom-to-top approach, reach out as far as allowed, and pour out opinions so as to build a roadmap for further reforms.

There could be 40 such talents from different backgrounds to discuss, formulate, and refine a collective view that represents all sides of the industrial spectrum on a higher level, in a broader scope, and to a profound depth. We believe that individual fibre outweighs the personnel size in such a delegation. Each shall do his/her duty — that is, to prioritise the development of the country — and commit oneself heart and soul to the goal of one’s struggle and the target of one’s passion and energy. For those virtual asset investors from the Chinese mainland who, a decade or so ago, threw themselves into the budding industry and have since taken up residence in North America and Europe, investing in China is too good an opportunity to let pass. Shying from embracing the change can only bring mute anonymity with fresh regrets.

A rallying cry

The heady start of Web 3.0 was essentially a zero-sum game, perhaps even a negative-sum one, where at the feet of each vaunted prodigy lay a great number of the unfortunate, deprived, and hard-trodden. Karma cannot be scrubbed off with repetitions of “I meant no harm”, and flight into distant land is in no way an atonement. Must you live out your life as an outlander with a guilty conscience? Must your children also? Must you relocate your entire family each time a new country signs extradition treaties with China, as they now are being signed? The past has passed. A decision now is a decision for your future.

And in that future, China remains. The developing China stands as the greatest certainty in these times of tribulation and inconstancy, having survived five millennia of them. An investment in China, therefore, is an investment in the future. We ourselves, though always long on China, do not fail to grasp the desperate hedging efforts of those caught in the perceived dilemma between the two sides in a polarised world as they try to bet on both the East and the West. We would like to remind those drifting children that as long as you are investing in China, no one will snoop around to question your intention.

With this message, we call upon you to join us and forge ahead in creating a bright future for our storied nation, a future where she gains momentum with a robust gallop and welcome stature, a future which we may, decades later, look back at with pride and count ourselves to be among its principal supporters, builders, and, without a doubt, beneficiaries of its peace and plenty.

Accumulus Management Team

December 2024