Interview with New Fire Technology CEO Weng Xiaoqi: From Huobi and HashKey to New Fire, what are the next steps?

Exclusive interview with the CEO of New Fire Technology, Weng Xiaoqi, analyzing his industry journey and explaining how New Fire serves high-net-worth clients through "private banking level" services and lays out the future blueprint for "custodian companies" in the U.S. stock market. (Background: Is Brother Sun being played for a sucker? After Du Jun sold Huobi, he established New Fire Hong Kong and "poached senior executives from Huobi") (Background Supplement: Sun Yuchen angrily sued Bloomberg for "breaching public" wealth privacy: TRX and BTC holdings are like running naked, putting life and property in danger.) This interview revolves around the career history of New Fire Technology's new CEO, Qiye (Weng Xiaoqi), his judgment on the trend of compliance in the crypto industry, New Fire Technology's new stage strategy (aimed at high-net-worth clients with "private banking level digital asset custody" and "special layout for U.S. stock custodian companies"), and his observations on the current market cycle and the migration of capital pricing rights. Key points include: Compliance and integration with TradFi are seen as long-term main lines; New Fire Technology intends to penetrate high-net-worth clients with high reach and full-chain services; simultaneously planning to establish large-scale participation in U.S. stocks "custodian companies (Treasury/DAT)" wave. Statement: The content of this article is solely the personal opinion of the interviewee and does not represent Wu's views, nor does it endorse any Token. Wu's comments have no financial interest in New Fire Technology. Readers are advised to strictly comply with local laws and regulations and not to engage in illegal financial activities. 1. Guest Introduction: Qiye (Weng Xiaoqi) from Huobi, HashKey to New Fire's new stage positioning Colin: Hello everyone, in this episode of the podcast, we invite Qiye (Weng Xiaoqi). He previously served as CEO of Huobi Global, and later as Group COO and CEO of the Exchange Business Group at HashKey, experiencing multiple industry fluctuations, and now has come to a new business platform. This is also Qiye's first interview since joining New Fire Technology, where he shares the future development plans. First, please introduce yourself, as some listeners may not be familiar with your background. Qiye: Hello everyone, first of all, thank you Colin for the invitation. I am Weng Xiaoqi, English name Livio, a graduate of Tsinghua University's Software Institute, and a junior of Li Lin. The more familiar part of my resume is that I started serving as CEO of Huobi Global in 2018, going through the cycle from 2018 to 2021; in 2023 I went to HashKey Exchange as CEO, responsible for the establishment and landing of the exchange. I then continued to work in management positions and left in 2024. Since this year, we have had a lot of communication with General Li Lin. At that time, New Fire was lacking overall management for a period and was relatively lagging in business. Li Lin invited me to use New Fire, a listed company, as an entrepreneurial platform to continue to restart the business related to trading that we are familiar with. We all agreed that this is an exciting direction. Last month I joined New Fire through a private placement and was officially appointed as CEO of New Fire Technology starting August 26. I am very glad to have the opportunity to communicate with everyone in this new identity. Thank you. Colin: Okay, everyone has a general understanding of Livio's resume. Qiye, can you talk in detail about your experiences and insights since entering the crypto asset industry? Including your different feelings at Huobi and HashKey—from being an offshore exchange comparable in size to Binance at that time, to participating in the creation of the most important compliant exchange in Greater China/Hong Kong, and now joining a listed company in Hong Kong, especially as the crypto stock market is quite hot right now. Having gone through these different stages, what interesting thoughts or different feelings have you had at each stage? Qiye: I personally got involved with crypto assets quite early. In 2013, I was arbitraging between Huobi and OK exchanges, where the price difference in the order book was very large. I formally entered the industry afterward, maintaining close contact for several years without directly joining. In 2018, I joined Huobi, where the main theme of my work was leading various compliance constructions. For instance, at that time, Hainan had planned to "list" virtual currency exchanges, and we frequently competed on the same track with Binance and OK. At that stage, the entire industry was eager for compliance and transparency, hoping to become the "regular army." Many exchanges made considerable efforts for this. General Li Lin and I were also laying out for a listed company at that time—New Fire Technology should be one of the world's earliest crypto concept stocks (in 2018). The core logic then was to take compliance as the path and complete the layout in advance. During the same period, Xiao Feng was brewing the licensed exchange in Hong Kong from 2018 to 2019. By 2022, HashKey's license was granted, and the trading team was officially established. Overall, if I had to summarize it in one sentence, it would be "compliance": this reflects a snapshot of the crypto industry's journey toward compliance amid the opportunities of the times. Starting from 2018, everyone wanted to pursue compliance, but there were no pathways. By 2022, formal licenses emerged in Hong Kong, and we began to officially invest in the operation of licensed exchanges in Hong Kong, building the most crucial part of this ecosystem. Looking ahead, we have seen that the recent ETFs have become a significant channel for net asset inflows, functioning as simplified trading vehicles. From a strategic perspective, the impact of U.S. stock ETFs on the global scale is comparable to the three major exchanges of the past. Recently, the DAT "custodian model" offers another more straightforward approach. Many people are still not accustomed to buying ETFs, but individual stocks are familiar to most global investors, so DAT is similar to MicroStrategy, including the recent popular BitMine, Hong Kong's Boya Interactive, and Japan's Metaplanet—while the tokens they focus on may differ, they all belong to the same category: the custodian model DAT. This type of DAT becomes a more straightforward, lighter way for traditional investors to layout crypto assets. Therefore, from my experience in the entire industry until now, if I had to condense it, it would be "compliance." This is a major trend; the overall integration of the traditional financial industry and the crypto industry has brought a massive influx of new funds. In recent years, we have seen various licenses being advanced in both the U.S. and Hong Kong, and the global compliance process is underway. I believe everyone is deeply moved by this. In the future, similarly, under the guidance of the compliance process, the entire industry will undergo significant changes and generate massive incremental opportunities. This also brings great imagination space for New Fire and our subsequent work. 2. Historical Context of New Fire Technology: One of the Earliest Crypto Concept Stocks Colin: Understood. Regarding the historical context of New Fire Technology, could you help us sort it out, Livio? I actually don't know much about it. It seems that in different stages, it has tried various directions. Qiye: Actually, I don't know much about it either. We are more discussing the origin. In 2018, Huobi Group decided to transform towards compliance, and the first step was to position New Fire Technology as an important target. At that time, the company was called "Tongcheng Holdings." We invested a significant amount (which has been publicly disclosed) and sent different management teams to participate in the management of New Fire. New Fire is not only one of the earliest crypto concept stocks in the world but may also be the first licensed asset management platform in Hong Kong to invest 100% in virtual assets. Due to various reasons, including the subsequent development and equity disposal of Huobi, the team changed several times; the team taking over was unable to exert business influence due to various factors...