TREE NEWS reports: On October 16, the 2026 Hong Kong Art Finance Forum (4th edition) opened at the Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. The forum was hosted by the China Socio-Economic and Cultural Exchange Association (Hong Kong), with multiple institutions co-organizing, and the series of events also included the Hong Kong Digital Art Asset Carnival and the Autumn Art Auction. The auction held previews on October 16–17 and the gavel fell on October 18. Practitioners from the art world, finance, appraisal and valuation, and digital services gathered in the same venue, with the discussion converging on one question: can Hong Kong become the hub where artworks move toward assetization and digitization? Tree News participated in this event as one of the exhibitors, with a booth, and the Tree News COO also took the stage for a pitch and joined the afternoon roundtable forum.
First, the forum itself. The morning opening session featured remarks by several guests. Dr. Kim Hak-soo, Honorary Chairman of the China Socio-Economic and Cultural Exchange Association (Hong Kong) and former UN Under-Secretary-General, mentioned in his speech that Hong Kong is a global trading center that lets artworks become liquid assets. Wang Zhongying, President of the Hong Kong Academy of Finance, pointed out that the assetization of artworks is accelerating, and that cultivating digital finance talent is especially critical. Subsequently, Dr. Rebecca Chow of MEXC exchange gave a presentation titled “New Possibilities for Prediction Markets and Art Trading,” and experts from the University of Hong Kong’s Web3 Institute also joined the morning roundtable discussion. Here, the traditional art market came face to face with digital finance and Web3 infrastructure.
After the lunch break, the agenda shifted toward the Web3 and AI ecosystem. The Asia head of Ave.ai, the Asia-Pacific head of 0G Foundation, the founder of Techub News, and other guests took the stage in turn, discussing from the perspectives of industry, platforms, infrastructure, and media how Hong Kong can connect AI, art RWA, and the Web3 industry ecosystem. The evening free networking and exhibition tour sessions brought the views from the stage down to face-to-face conversations between booths, and there was also an invitation-only dinner in the evening.
Back to Tree News. On this day, our participation was divided into three levels.
The first level was the booth. During the free networking and exhibition tour sessions, the Tree News booth welcomed many attendees who stopped by to talk. [To be added here: booth location, on-site display content (brand introduction / rate card / Shubao mascot / App, etc.), on-site interaction and types of visiting guests.] For a media and events brand known for connecting people, the booth is the most direct node: people from art, finance, exchanges, and technical teams met each other here for the first time.
The second level was the pitch. At 3:30 p.m., the Tree News COO took the stage and delivered a speech titled “Upholding Integrity and Conveying Trust: The Long-Term Value of Vertical Financial Media in the Web4 Ecosystem.” In an era when information is increasingly easy to produce and increasingly hard to distinguish, what vertical financial media can rely on to retain readers’ trust, and how they can take on the verification and transmission of information in the new ecosystem, are the questions this pitch sought to answer. [To be added here: 2–3 core viewpoints or memorable quotes from the COO’s speech, preferably in the original words.] Tree News has long served the Web3, AI, and macro finance fields, covering mainland China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, and maintains cooperation with 500+ media resources and 3000+ KOLs. “Upholding integrity” is the bottom line, and “conveying trust” is the value—this is also the voice we want more people to hear on this international stage in Hong Kong.
The third level was the roundtable. At 4:15 p.m., the Tree News COO, leading Chinese-language finance blogger PP, and Dr. Rebecca Chow of MEXC exchange, moderated by Mr. Yang Zhi, discussed [From Community Consensus to Asset Consensus]. Putting guests from different backgrounds at the same table often creates more tension through the collision of perspectives than a single speech, and this is exactly what Tree News has always done: connecting people from different fields.
The digitization and assetization of artworks is still a path being explored, with rules, standards, and trust mechanisms all under construction. What Tree News is willing to do is let these explorations be accurately seen by more people. Next, we will continue to hold more industry events in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, and we welcome more projects and institutions to join us in seeing the future that is happening.
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