Alchemy Pay and HTF Securities have taken a decisive step to further deepen their regulatory footprint in Hong Kong’s digital asset market, announcing that HTF’s Type 4 (Advice on Securities) license has been formally elevated to cover virtual asset advisory services. According to Alchemy Pay, the upgrade will be implemented in collaboration with HTF Securities Limited and under the supervision of the Securities and Futures Commission, and will empower the licensed firm to provide advice on regulated virtual assets to both institutional and retail clients in Hong Kong.
This license change follows Alchemy Pay’s previous strategic investment in licensed brokers and represents the first step in a broader plan to expand permitted activities to include virtual asset trading and asset management under Type 1 and Type 9. A company spokesperson positioned the move as part of a phased regulatory strategy that mirrors the path already taken by other industry players in the city.
Market participants say the approach of first securing advisory permits and then seeking trading and management permits is becoming a common route for crypto companies wanting to operate within Hong Kong’s strict but clearer regulatory framework. There is precedent for this strategy, with major local cryptocurrency groups taking a similar route to adding virtual asset services to their existing SFC licenses, a pattern explicitly referenced by Alchemy Pay’s team when expanding its presence in the country.
For Alchemy Pay, the license upgrade is both a regulatory milestone and a practical realization of its product roadmap in Asia. The company explains that this approval complements its efforts in the Stablecoin Infrastructure, Fiat Rail, and Alchemy Chain projects, which aim to bridge traditional payments and crypto rails while keeping compliance at the heart of the matter. The company also pointed to recent regulatory wins overseas as evidence of its commitment to putting compliance first.
Compliant encryption service
Compliance efforts can be found across several jurisdictions. Alchemy Pay said it has steadily expanded its license rollout in the United States, securing multi-state money transmitter licenses in 2025, as part of a broader effort to make fiat-to-cryptocurrency flows more widely available and regulated. Observers see Hong Kong’s upgrade as an Asian response to the US strategy.
Industry players said the move will make it easier for institutional investors and retail clients in the city to access regulated advisory services on tokens and other virtual assets, while providing a stronger foundation for Alchemy Pay and HTF to move on to the next stage of their regulatory programs. The companies said they will now focus on applying for a wide range of permits that will enable them to offer trading and asset management services related to virtual assets, which, if approved, will further position the group at the intersection of traditional finance and the emerging digital asset economy.
Founded in 2017, Alchemy Pay has established itself as the payment gateway that connects crypto and fiat for merchants, developers, and consumers, offering a wide range of products from on- and off-ramp, multi-fiat Web3 banking to NFT checkout and a tokenized real-world asset platform. The company said the increased HTF license is a key component to providing these services under a regulated framework in one of Asia’s most important financial centres.
As regulators around the world continue to define the boundaries of crypto asset activity, the development of Alchemy Pay-HTF highlights how established licensing routes and local partnerships remain central to companies looking to expand their crypto services without breaking the rules. The case will be closely watched by customers and competitors alike as companies pursue the next steps in Hong Kong’s regulatory roadmap.
