ChainCatcher Hong Kong Theme Forum Highlights: Decoding the Growth Engine Under the Integration of Crypto Assets and Smart Economy

On April 19, the "Crypto 2026: From Cryptocurrency to Smart Economy" themed forum, co-hosted by Monera Digital and ChainCatcher in collaboration with RootData, was successfully held in Hong Kong. The forum received joint support from partners including Tencent Cloud, HashKey Chain, Alchemy Pay, Kite AI, Sentient, Sign, Predict.fun, Monad, Brevis, UXLINK, OneBullEx, SVP Chain, OmenX, TurboFlow, LOTUS, Mentis, NeoSoul, Swap315, Electric Soul, among others.

At the event, representatives from numerous well-known projects and institutions, including Max Zhou, Business Head of RootData; Gongye Feng, Co-founder and CEO of Monera Digital; Alan Nie, Industry Architect at Tencent Cloud; Arda Senoz, Ecosystem Head at Alchemy Pay; Dr. Daxue Wang, CFO of Lotus Technology; Laughing, APAC Head of KiteAI; Anita, APAC Head of Sentient; Michael, Co-founder and CEO of Brevis; Jerry, Product Head of Mentis; Ricardo, APAC BD Head of Predict.fun; Sarah, Partner at Sign; YuYi, Senior Business Development at HashKey Chain; Harvey Chen, APAC Ecosystem Head of Monad; Gisele, Chief Marketing Officer of OmenX; and Celest, Marketing Head of SVP Chain, delivered keynote speeches and participated in roundtable discussions on the integration trends of cryptocurrency and smart economy.

Keynote Speeches

Max Zhou, Business Head of RootData, delivered a keynote speech titled "Trust as Infrastructure: How Data Transparency Reshapes the New Cycle of Web3."

Max Zhou pointed out that transparency is no longer a "bonus," but a threshold for institutions, regulators, and users. RootData positions itself as a leading Web3 enterprise data platform, quantifying project information completeness and credibility through financing data, relationship maps, and the industry's unique "transparency scoring" system.

He introduced that RootData has recorded over 9,600 financing events and more than 18,000 key industry figures, providing A-F ratings for over 19,000 projects, becoming an important reference for institutional due diligence and exchange listing evaluations. The platform has established ecological cooperation with over 220 institutions, including Binance Wallet, OKX, and ByBit.

Additionally, RootData launched a three-dimensional exchange evaluation model (liquidity + asset value + transparency), abandoning the "volume-only" approach. Max Zhou emphasized that transparency is becoming a new axis for Web3, just as security audits are indispensable.

Gongye Feng, Co-founder and CEO of Monera Digital, delivered a keynote speech titled "AI Empowering Private Banking for the Smart Economy."

Feng pointed out that what disappeared after 2022 was not the demand for digital assets, but the market's confidence in the ways capital can enter. Monera Digital positions itself as an AI private bank for the smart economy, where the core is not to use AI as traders but to act as an accelerator, compressing research, testing, and iteration cycles from months to days.

He emphasized that risk control must be institutionalized rather than personalized. Monera has built four lines of defense: source constraints on exposure and collateral, automated clearing and margin management, complete isolation of customer assets, and prevention of maturity mismatches while maintaining liquidity buffers. Additionally, AI plays the role of a 24/7 digital CRO, achieving a leap from passive monitoring to proactive warning.

In terms of service model, Monera does not operate as a pure technology platform but insists on "anti-AI illusion," where AI is responsible for optimization and efficiency, while trust, responsibility, and continuity of relationships remain human responsibilities. Feng believes that the premise for crypto assets to truly become configurable assets is to translate complexity into clear, continuous, and trustworthy private banking services.

Alan Nie, Industry Architect at Tencent Cloud, delivered a keynote speech titled "Cloud + AI Dual Engine: Tencent Cloud Fuels New Growth for Web3."

Alan Nie pointed out that Web3 enterprises face three major bottlenecks in global infrastructure, R&D efficiency, and business intelligence. Tencent Cloud deeply integrates through the "Cloud + AI" dual engine, providing low-latency infrastructure covering the globe. Among them, the Singapore data center is the only cloud vendor globally that offers four availability zones, and the self-developed TDSQL-C database can achieve second-level elastic scaling, with Redis single-node performance reaching over 300,000.

In terms of AI empowerment, Tencent Cloud launched CodeBuddy (AI Pair Programmer) and WorkBuddy (Personal AI Assistant), which can automatically generate code, batch process office documents, organize meeting minutes, and support multi-agent parallel execution of complex tasks. In financial scenarios, the automation report reproduction cycle has been shortened from 3 days to half a day; in on-chain data analysis scenarios, storage costs have been reduced to one-tenth of the original, with query responses reaching millisecond levels.

Alan Nie stated that Tencent Cloud is committed to helping Web3 enterprises build the next-generation smart economy infrastructure with the "Cloud + AI" dual engine.

Arda Senoz, Ecosystem Head at Alchemy Pay, delivered a keynote speech titled "Bridging the Fiat and Crypto Global Economies."

Arda Senoz highlighted the newly launched Alchemy Chain, whose core value lies in connecting wallets, merchants, and payment partners in the settlement chain. The ACH token serves three main functions on-chain: gas fees, incentives, and governance. According to the technical roadmap, the core payment and ACH fee settlement will be implemented in Q4 2025, liquidity and interoperability will be advanced in Q1 2026, and the issuance of Alchemy Chain stablecoins and establishment of payment channels are planned for Q2 2026.

Arda emphasized that Alchemy Pay always adheres to a compliant and secure product route, promoting the mainstream adoption of digital assets through innovative solutions such as RWA integration, truly achieving a seamless connection between fiat and crypto economies.

Dr. Daxue Wang, CFO of Lotus Technology Inc., delivered a keynote speech titled "Crypto Links to the Physical Industry, Smart Mobility Running on the Chain."

Dr. Daxue Wang stated that smart mobility is the vanguard carrier of the smart economy. Lotus, as a luxury electric vehicle brand with a 78-year history, has been listed on NASDAQ and is actively exploring the deep integration of crypto technology with the physical industry. He proposed three major integration directions:

First, safeguarding data value by utilizing the immutable and privacy computing characteristics of blockchain, allowing users to have absolute control over their personal data, achieving trustworthy data circulation and value flow. Second, releasing asset value by exploring efficient circulation and fair trading of assets such as vehicle sales, brand value, intelligent driving technology patents, and global sales networks through RWA, while promoting credible traceability of carbon assets in green mobility. Third, co-creating ecological value by recording data on driving, charging, and maintenance through on-chain smart nodes, allowing users to upgrade from "car owners" to "participants in the brand ecosystem" through on-chain rights confirmation.

Dr. Daxue Wang pointed out that the current challenges include compliance implementation, technology adaptation, and ecological co-construction, but the opportunities lie in open cooperation, promoting smart mobility as a practical landing scenario for the smart economy. Lotus hopes to work hand in hand with the crypto ecosystem to realize the vision of "from buying a Lotus car to sharing the growth value of Lotus technology."

Roundtable Discussion

Guests including Laughing, APAC Head of KiteAI; Anita, APAC Head of Sentient; Michael, Co-founder and CEO of Brevis; Jerry, Product Head of Mentis; and Ricardo, APAC BD Head of Predict.fun, held a roundtable discussion on the theme "AI × Crypto --- The Next Generation Digital Economy Foundation."

Regarding whether the explosion of open-source AI Agents (like "raising lobsters") is a short-term sentiment or a long-term trend, Laughing believes this marks a paradigm shift of AI from "conversational" to "executive," indicating the beginning of a long-term trend. However, agents lack physical identities, making it difficult for merchants to trust their trading behaviors, and issues of data leakage and uncontrollability remain obstacles to scaling. Jerry pointed out, based on his own experience, that current agents have security risks such as memory fuzziness, token consumption in loops, and accidental file deletion; while newly emerged agents have improvements, they still have shortcomings. Ricardo stated that behind the short-term sentiment is real user demand, but truly reproducible profitable trading agents are still very rare, and there is a long way to go.

Regarding core bottlenecks such as trust, security, and verifiability, Michael emphasized that the current execution process of agents is like a black box, where users cannot verify whether their decisions are executed as promised. Zero-knowledge proof technology can mathematically prove the source of the agent's output and compliance of behavior without exposing privacy. Anita added that Sentient is committed to building an open and collaborative AI agent network, promoting the deep integration of AI and blockchain in identity, data, and incentive layers, providing foundational support for the next generation of digital economy.

Regarding the first potential scalable application scenarios, the guests generally believe that the programming field is relatively mature, and agents in prediction markets perform better than humans in specific tracks due to their rationality and lack of emotions. In the short term, they are optimistic about API Marketplace and cross-platform shopping agents, while mid-term prospects are favorable for content creation AI (like AI influencers), and agent-to-agent interaction and agent/skill marketplaces are seen as important future trends.

Guests including Sarah, Partner at Sign; YuYi, Senior Business Development at HashKey Chain; Harvey Chen, APAC Ecosystem Head of Monad; Gisele, Chief Marketing Officer of OmenX; and Celest, Marketing Head of SVP Chain, held a roundtable discussion on "Revaluation of Crypto and the New Cycle."

Regarding why they still firmly bet on Crypto amid the AI boom, Sarah pointed out that the hotter AI gets, the more use cases there are for Crypto assets, and future transactions between AI agents must rely on digital assets. YuYi believes that the bear market is precisely a time for sifting through the sands, with compliant RWA (such as Hong Kong's first physical silver token) being implemented, speculative assets being eliminated, and the era of on-chain infrastructure arriving. Harvey Chen stated that high-performance public chains are the foundation for supporting large-scale applications, and Monad is committed to this. Gisele pointed out that Crypto addresses fairness and value transfer, complementing AI's efficiency solutions. Celest emphasized that AI lacks a native value system and increasingly needs Crypto to provide value authentication and decentralized trust as it develops.

Regarding the changing understanding of Crypto's value, the guests unanimously believe that the industry is shifting from "issuing tokens for the sake of issuing tokens" to pursuing sustainable business models, focusing more on actual values such as capital efficiency, low costs, and 24-hour settlement. The value of public chains should be viewed in terms of real business scenarios and user transaction volumes, rather than narratives and financing.

Regarding future growth engines and entrepreneurial advice, the guests are generally optimistic about compliant RWA, AI payments, and sovereign blockchain directions, advising entrepreneurs to focus on real application scenarios, avoid empty concepts, and maintain a long-term construction mindset.