In many ways, the real value of a new service or technology can only be understood once it hits the international stage. This is as true for goods and assets as it is for services, be they physical or digital. Especially in today’s increasingly globalized markets, the ability for a given asset to perform consistently across distantly separated communities is crucial for its success. For digital assets and technologies like cryptocurrency and the blockchain, where established institutions are only just buying into their potential, building global connections is of paramount importance.
This is precisely what seasoned finance professional, entrepreneur, and community builder Henry Chen has spent recent years doing. As Partner and CBO of SNZ Holdings, former Head of Capital Markets and RWA at KuCoin Group, and former Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong, Chen can bridge the old-school financial institutions and the hungry innovative fintech solutions of today. With fifteen years of experience spanning both traditional finance and modern fintech—with a specific focus on the institutionalization of cryptocurrencies, on-chain financial infrastructure, and blockchain mass adoption—Chen is uniquely positioned to foster and connect digital asset communities across the globe.
“When developers, users, and entrepreneurs are all part of the same ecosystem and can engage directly, products improve more quickly and adoption happens more organically,” Chen explains. “That kind of interaction is especially powerful in Web3, where protocols, applications, and infrastructure need to work together across many different participants. The community model allows that coordination to happen in a much more fluid and adaptive way.”
Building Community One Gathering At A Time
Henry Chen has organized and attended events in Hong Kong, New York, and San Francisco focused on building the future of blockchain and digital assets, and has made connecting these digital asset communities a key focus of his work moving forward. Each city is interested in the future of blockchain and digital assets, each from a different perspective. As a result, opportunities to foster and interact with the communities in these cities represent opportunities to deepen connections and grow the overall digital asset space. It’s through events like these, and the community collaborations they enable, that Chen hopes to connect digital asset communities around the world.
“The most meaningful gatherings create new relationships, unlock specific collaboration opportunities, and give participants a clearer perspective on what really matters in the next phase of the industry,” says Chen. “That requires thoughtful curation, honest content, and an environment where people feel comfortable discussing both opportunities and constraints.”
Perhaps the most successful example is the organization and creation of Hong Kong’s first permanent community space for the Ethereum ecosystem in Asia: Hong Kong Ethereum Community Hub. The Hub’s Grand Opening drew over 1500 registrants from around the world, and garnered the support of an array of institutional co-sponsors. This novel space—created and organized by Chen in collaboration with SNZ, Ethereum Foundation, and other leaders in the Ethereum community—serves as an international nexus connecting Web2 and Web3 developers from the East and West through daily co-working, community events, and workshops for the Ethereum community.
“The hope is that ETH HK Hub becomes a model for how physical community infrastructure can strengthen decentralized ecosystems,” Chen says. “If we can demonstrate that a well-run, values-driven hub can create lasting value for builders, institutions, and the broader Ethereum community, then other regions may follow with their own hubs.”
Aside from Hong Kong Ethereum Hub, Chen’s events in New York and San Francisco demonstrate that digital asset ecosystems continue to be a hotbed of innovation and experimentation. Each of the three community centers showed a unique perspective. Hong Kong is very focused on building institutional-grade infrastructure and attracting capital to a long-term ecosystem. New York’s digital asset community tends to frame digital assets within the context of global capital markets, compliance, and product structuring. San Francisco is, as always, the birthplace of experimentation, and its proximity to Silicon Valley’s product culture—especially around AI—continues to affect its ideas and frontier applications.
“What stands out across all three cities is that on-chain finance increasingly looks like the next generation of fintech,” explains Chen. “The infrastructure is still at an early stage, but the direction is clear: blockchain can make finance more accessible, more efficient, and more programmable in ways that can meaningfully upgrade the financial system.”
The Value Of Connection To Web3
As digital asset communities continue to grow, institutions and individuals alike are rushing to build connections and establish community centers. Indeed, leaders and organizers like Henry Chen are becoming linchpins of the ecosystems they interact with, and that’s for one reason: connecting global communities is becoming one of the most valuable contributions someone can make in Web3. Established financial institutions are investing resources into Web3 and digital assets more than ever before; the time of the typical investor being the most valuable contributor has already come and gone. For those most interested in Web3’s development and flourishing, the most meaningful way to contribute is to bring people together and build communities.
“In practical terms, that means helping founders sharpen strategy, connect with the right institutions and markets, and navigate regulation, product design, and execution in a more efficient way,” Henry Chen explains. “The role is less about being a typical investor or agent and more about taking the journey from concept to company-building materially easier and more credible with the founding teams.”
This shift in focus comes as a direct result of the optimism and real development in the broader digital asset ecosystem. Experienced market participants are seeing projects that combine real-world problems with credible execution capability and realistic paths to adoption—projects that aren’t focused on generating buzz, but on solving actual systemic bottlenecks. Real World Asset tokenization continues to gain momentum, in large part because institutions are starting to structure tokenized products that fit within existing legal and operational frameworks, but also because there’s a growing focus on secondary liquidity, utility, interoperability, and data transparency.
“What gives the most optimism is the combination of maturity and ambition in the current conversations,” says Chen. “There is far less focus on purely speculative cycles and far more focus on infrastructure, RWA, payments, on-chain finance, and developer tools—areas that can support multi-decade growth. People are asking harder questions, but they are also building more serious answers.”
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