Industry leaders gather in Hong Kong to discuss pressing crypto challenges
Crypto executives gathered at Cointelegraph’s LONGITUDE conference in Hong Kong recently, and the conversations were pretty revealing. They focused on two main things that keep people up at night: Bitcoin’s vulnerability to quantum computing and the ongoing regulatory uncertainty in the United States.
The event, co-hosted by exchange OneBullEx, kicked off with Tron founder Justin Sun talking about what the industry should prioritize. He mentioned artificial general intelligence (AGI) as something we need to prepare for. “We need to create a very easy standard for AGI to use blockchain,” Sun said. That’s interesting to think about – making blockchain accessible to future AI systems.
Quantum computing threat divides Bitcoin community
The quantum computing discussion got pretty heated. Charles Edwards from Capriole Investments had a stark warning. He suggested that Bitcoin’s value should actually be discounted until the quantum resistance problem gets solved. “Today, you kind of have to start to discount the value of Bitcoin based on that risk until it’s solved,” Edwards said.
He pointed to growing quantum fears as a reason Bitcoin’s price ended 2025 lower than it started. “If you just look at the data, 2025 should have been a great year for Bitcoin,” he explained, noting that quantum became a “non-zero threat” and US Bitcoin ETF issuers began adding risk disclaimers about it.
Not everyone was quite so worried though. Matthew Roszak from Bloq seemed less concerned about how things might play out. And Akshat Vaidya from Maelstrom called quantum an “existential threat” but believed it would be met with a “coordinated response that’s proportionate.”
US regulatory landscape shifting under Trump administration
The conversation about US regulation showed some interesting shifts. Panelists agreed that the US has become noticeably more friendly toward crypto since President Donald Trump took office. That’s a change from the previous administration.
Sean McHugh, who moved from the US to Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, explained his reasoning: “I think one of the reasons why I moved to Dubai is because, you know, they were committed to clarity when I left a year and a half ago.”
Craig Salm from Grayscale Investments noted the changing dynamic between US regulators. “There used to be this whole turf war between the SEC and the CFTC,” he said, referring to conflicts during the Biden administration. Now, according to Salm, the two agencies are meeting together and coordinating more.
Infrastructure concerns for trillion-dollar institutional flows
When it came to whether crypto infrastructure can handle massive institutional money, the panelists expressed some doubts. A.J. Warner from Offchain Labs said, “I would say probably not yet.”
Joanita Titan from Monad Foundation echoed that sentiment: “Billion-dollar payments or billion-dollar processing is not a problem, but trillion dollars, I don’t think we’re there yet.”
Warner pointed to the main bottlenecks as “continuing to scale, resiliency of networks, and user experiences.” That makes sense – handling that scale requires more than just technical capability; it needs robust systems that won’t fail under pressure.
Despite the concerns raised, there was an underlying optimism about the industry’s future. Even with a volatile market at the end of 2025, people seemed to believe in the long-term potential. The conference series will continue in 2026 with events planned for New York, Paris, Dubai, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi.
What struck me about these discussions is how practical they were. No hype, just real concerns about real problems. Quantum computing isn’t some distant sci-fi concept anymore – it’s something people are actually pricing into their investment decisions. And regulatory clarity isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s becoming a competitive advantage for jurisdictions that get it right.
