In Portal Labs’ previous article “Chinese Investors’ Offline Breakout: Why You Need to Attend the 2025 Hong Kong Carnival?”, we shared with you why Chinese Web3 investors need to attend conferences.
However, how and where to run also requires skills. In this article, Portal Labs will talk to you about it.
Where are you running?
The first step in choosing an offline event is to see in which city it will be held.
The reason is simple: a city’s policy environment and entrepreneurial atmosphere determine whether it can attract truly high-quality institutions and projects to participate.
For example, in the past two years, Hong Kong has gradually opened up to Web3 and strongly supported the entry of Web3 companies. In early 2025, Consensus, one of the most famous Web3 events, chose to hold one in Hong Kong.
However, with so many Web3-friendly regions, how should we choose? The following are regional activities that Portal Labs recommends that you pay attention to, which are more suitable for Chinese babies.
Hong Kong (five stars)
Hong Kong, due to its open policies and multi-dimensional factors such as history and geography, has become one of the cities with the most concentrated Web3 activities in the world.
For Chinese investors, Hong Kong is not only geographically "close", but also a "fitting zone" in terms of policies, culture, and language. Therefore, it also becomes your bridgehead to enter the international Web3 network.
More importantly, Hong Kong's "Web3 activity density" is not accidental, but is driven by a set of policy guidelines and market vitality. For example, the VASP licensing mechanism), compliant trading platforms and institutions such as HashKey/OSL are accelerating their landing, and local incubators such as Cyberport are also continuing to increase their investment in Web3, building a policy support and venue support ecosystem for start-up projects.
In 2024, Hong Kong has successfully held more than 100 Web3 events, covering three major directions: investment, technology, and ecology. For example, the Web3 Festival in April 2024 attracted more than 10,000 participants, becoming the most influential Web3 comprehensive event in Asia; during the same period, key events such as TOKEN2049 Hong Kong, Digital Asset Summit, and Cyberport Web3 Demo Day also promoted a large number of early financing, ecological cooperation, and policy dialogues.
For this reason, for Chinese investors who want to participate in the primary market, plan global asset allocation, and find policy breakthroughs, Hong Kong is the core city with the most certainty, the highest density, and the most worthy of full participation.
Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Thailand (four stars)
In addition to Hong Kong, other parts of Asia are also worth paying attention to, such as:
As a crypto-friendly country with many years of development, Singapore has a clear compliance narrative and many high-quality events. In particular, Token2049 in September every year has become one of the most iconic Web3 events in Singapore and even in the world.
Japan, on the other hand, is strongly government-led and has continued to promote compliant NFTs, blockchain games, and digital identities in recent years. Web3 activities supported by major Japanese conglomerates are worthy of attention.
South Korea is clearly technology-driven, with relatively active blockchain games, ZK, and Web3 social aspects, and a mature developer ecosystem. However, participation still requires overcoming certain language and cultural barriers.
Thailand is a new Web3-friendly country in recent years. Its entertainment Web3 ecosystem is developing rapidly, the GameFi and NFT communities are active, and the C-end user stickiness is high, which is suitable for observing the landing scenarios and user habits.
These regions can serve as supplementary sites to Hong Kong. Investors are advised to participate selectively based on their own track preferences and resource bases.
United States, Middle East (three stars)
Many Chinese investors will also ask, is it worth going to the United States or Dubai? The answer is: it is worth it, but the prerequisite is to have clear goals and strong resource allocation capabilities.
First, the United States has always been one of the most active regions for BTC ecology, AI native protocols, and top DAOs. Core activities such as Bitcoin 2025 and Permissionless are mostly still concentrated in the United States. However, it should be noted that visas are complicated, travel costs are high, and some projects are more cautious when receiving Asian investors;
The Middle East, especially Dubai, is rapidly building Web3 infrastructure driven by policies, but resources are still highly concentrated among sovereign funds and large consortiums, which is suitable for teams with institutional backgrounds or seeking compliance licenses to participate.
Therefore, for most Chinese investors, the combination of "Hong Kong + Southeast Asia" is more realistic and has a higher return on investment in terms of difficulty of participation, information return ratio, and language convenience.
How to run?
There are more and more Web3 activities, and "attending meetings" is no longer just a quick tour or stamp collection, but a resource acquisition process that requires strategy and judgment. For Chinese investors, it is often easier to really gain something if they do the following three things.
Clarify your purpose
Different identities correspond to different ways of participation.
If you are an investor, you should focus on structured information scenarios such as VC exchanges, project roadshows, and Demo Day; if you are more concerned about overseas strategies or market trends, it is recommended that you participate more in compliance forums and small project roundtables, as these links make it easier to gain access to real experience.
Only by clarifying your own goals can you filter out truly valuable activities rather than just "watching the fun" amid the noise.
Make good use of offline
When attending conferences in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and other places, the most common regret is not not hearing the speeches, but "meeting people but not making connections."
It is recommended to prepare business cards, LinkedIn or Telegram QR codes in advance and actively participate in the free communication session. A short but credible on-site interaction is easier to extend the cooperative relationship than a "hello" in the group.
In addition, many activities will naturally gather certain types of projects or investors in the Side Event session. It is also recommended to collect the activities you are interested in and create a schedule in advance through Luma or Notion notes.
Managing expectations
Many real investment matches, ecosystem implementations, and strategy adjustments do not take place in the main forum.
Instead, you may hear the real financing rhythm of the project party at an unofficial event, or meet a fund manager who is planning a certain track at a cocktail party. These "non-preset connections" are the real value of running meetings.
Keep an open mind, but don’t expect to “catch big fish” in every event. You will find that continued participation and building a long-term link network are more valuable than one or two successful transactions.
*Tip: Investment is risky. Please participate in Web3 legally and in compliance with regulations.
