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Thanks for your exhaustive response and fascinating details. I was not expecting the legalization to be so restrictive and inaccessible, as a privilege for selected people.
But why not stable coins? Possible conflict with the one from the government? If not the existing exchanges, who gonna benefit from these licenses?
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Hong Kong's regulation isn't exactly as positive as they advertise it. Until last month, Bitcoin trading didn't need a license at all, anyone could just open a Bitcoin exchange and get going, today you need millions in lawyer fees and need to follow countless little rules that change on a whim.
Hong Kong will be very strict about these licenses, and I see little chance that a licensed exchange will be allowed to offer stablecoins like Tether, or "small cap" tokens. The global branches of Binance, Huobi, OKX, Crypto,com or Bitfinex stand no chance of getting a license. They can try to get a license for local offshoots, but they won't be able to offer interesting trading pairs, and due to a lack of bank accounts and regulated stable coins won't even be able to offer USD/BTC or HKD/BTC trading pairs.
People who promote Hong Kong's new policies as "legalization" are just parroting Chinese propaganda.