HONG KONG — Crypto is finding a new niche as the payment tool for machines, bitcoin not yet bottomed out, US regulatory changes and the role of prediction markets were some of the topics discussed at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference this week.
“As AI agents become capable of making and executing decisions independently, we may begin to see the early forms of what some call the machine economy, where AI agents can store and transfer digital assets, pay for services and transact with each other on the chain,” said Hong Kong Finance Minister Paul Chan Mo-po.
These tools can be used to automatically book hotels and flights or make other purchases, Binance CEO Richard Teng said during a fireside chat Thursday.
“If you think about the agentic AI, booking hotels, flights, whatever purchases you would make, how you think those purchases will be made — it will be via crypto and stablecoins,” he said. “So, crypto is the currency of AI if you think about it, and that’s how it’s going to turn out.”
Other participants discussed market volatility. Bitcoin has already fallen by nearly $30,000 in a month, and some industry watchers fear it could fall further before hitting a bottom. Market participants see $50,000 as one level to watch, multiple people told CoinDesk.
Correspondingly, the sentiment around the betting markets is starting to turn negative. Traders said they were concerned the platforms could siphon liquidity from “productive sectors” and in turn cause a “negative wealth effect.”
On the regulatory front, although announcements by Hong Kong policymakers took center stage, industry participants told CoinDesk they were closely monitoring US lawmakers and the negotiations surrounding crypto market structure legislation.
One person said the U.S. market is big enough to have a big impact on other locales, which is why some regulators are waiting to see how the U.S. fares before committing to a policy on crypto.
Hong Kong does not appear to be one of these jurisdictions. The Securities and Futures Commission is moving forward with various proposals to bring crypto companies further into the regulatory sphere.
