In Web3, 'hosting events' has almost become a standard action for every project party. Do you want exposure? Do you want cooperation? Hosting and participating in events is definitely one of the best ways to solve these two questions.
I wonder if anyone participated in the recent Web3 Carnival held in Hong Kong. This event, in addition to the large main summit, had a variety of surrounding activities, from cocktail parties, afterparties, technical salons, to meetups, closed-door meetings, hackathons, and forums. It can be said that the entire month of April in Hong Kong was heavily concentrated with Web3.
However, many organizers feel that hosting an event is as simple as organizing a process, inviting a guest, finding a venue or platform, and doing some promotion!
However, in reality, hosting events involves many compliance matters, especially as Web3 is an industry that simultaneously has financial attributes, technical characteristics, and cross-border nature. Its offline activities carry compliance risks far higher than ordinary industries, and neglecting these compliances is often a major taboo.
Therefore, in this article, Lawyer Mankun systematically sorts out common legal issues in Web3 events from the perspective of event organizers, combining real hosting logic and practical operational points to help project parties and operations teams truly 'conduct activities legally and compliantly.'
Three-step compliance logic for hosting events
The sensitivity of Web3 events is not only due to the shadow of 'tokens' but also because they involve too many gray areas across industries, regions, and identities.
Thus, the real question that organizers should consider is: in the three stages of event planning, execution, and follow-up, have I fulfilled my 'due diligence' and anticipated all potential risks?
Step 1: Event Planning Stage
What kind of event do you want to hold? This is the first step in all compliance judgments.
Many Web3 organizers often only stay at superficial labels like 'technical sharing' or 'community gathering' when planning events. However, from a regulatory perspective, the real key is the substance and purpose of the event you are holding—
Is there any promotion of tokens? Are we organizing financing? Are we providing convenience for overseas platforms to operate domestically?
These factors determine which compliance risk level your event belongs to, not how you package it.
Here, Lawyer Mankun divides offline Web3 events into three risk levels based on substantive content from personal experience and judgment:
Low-risk activities
For example, purely technology-oriented hackathons (like ETHGlobal), development workshops, and closed-door developer exchanges. Such events focus on code and products, do not involve financing or token promotion, and overall carry lower risks. But caution is needed to avoid using tokens for prizes or connecting results to token projects to guard against the suspicion of 'using technology to package tokens.'
Medium-risk activities
Typically, events with 'promotional' or 'market warming' nature, such as industry summits, press conferences, project meetups, and cocktail parties, may seem light socializing, but if guest speeches involve project tokens, media follow-ups are too enthusiastic, and participants' identities are complex, it can easily be questioned as 'disguised marketing.' Therefore, organizers need to carefully select attendees, especially speakers for such events, and it is best not to arrange for crypto KOLs to host to avoid creating a 'token association chain.'
High-risk activities
This type is fundamentally related to financing or tokens, such as closed-door financing matchmaking meetings, private domain investor meetings, token roadshow activities. These scenarios, once directed at mainland Chinese investors, can easily cross the red lines of illegal securities issuance and illegal fundraising. To reduce such risks, entry barriers can be set in advance (e.g., limiting to licensed foreign institutions/not involving tokens), materials directed only at overseas, and not discussing 'price expectations' or 'investment returns' throughout the process while retaining compliance backup records.
Many organizers may think: 'I held my event in Hong Kong, how could there be a problem?' But please note: if your content or dissemination reaches users in mainland China, even if the venue is overseas, it may still be regarded by regulators as 'providing services to domestic residents.'
Therefore, the risk of an event is not only determined by where it is held and what it is called, but also by what you say, who is listening, and whether funds are flowing.
In addition, laws and regulations in some regions may require event filing or specific permissions when involving foreign personnel, minors, or specific professional identities (such as financial practitioners). Ignoring these requirements may lead to inquiries or actions even if the event itself does not violate any laws due to inadequate identity verification.
So, when planning the event, Lawyer Mankun suggests that there are three things you must do:
1) Substantially classify the type of event, looking at the actual content and objectives;
2) Confirm the boundaries of event reach, especially whether it involves users from mainland China, sensitive countries, or cross-border promotion;
3) Set the 'content compliance line' in advance, meaning which words not to say, which materials not to send, and which people not to invite.
Remember: you are not planning an event process, but formulating a narrative of compliant behavior. Misclassifying can lead to mistakes, no matter how careful you are later.
Step 2: Event Execution Stage
The process is set, and next comes the real 'on-the-ground execution' phase. However, it is precisely at this stage that compliance issues are most likely to be triggered due to detail omissions.
Those who have hosted events know that planning is one thing, and execution is another. In reality, many problems do not arise from intentional planning but occur due to 'accidentally crossing the red line' during execution.
Lawyer Mankun summarizes the key issues of the event execution stage into three parts:
(1) Does the promotional content cross the line?
Many organizers, when designing event materials, producing PPTs, and publishing promotional articles, can easily mislead due to improper wording, especially the following high-frequency 'risk terms' should be particularly noted:
"Upcoming launch/token listing"
"Airdrop", "Pre-purchase", "X times potential token"
"XX investment institution leading the investment", "Well-known VC endorsement"
Token price predictions, yield expectations, investment return descriptions
Once these expressions appear, they may be regarded by regulators as having a tendency towards 'token sales promotion' or 'public fundraising,' which are illegal financial activities.
Therefore, it is recommended to establish a unified compliance review mechanism for promotional materials. It is best to have legal or lawyers assist in reviewing and forecasting all external posters, tweets, event manuals, guest PPTs, etc., to clearly define which information is 'only to be spoken privately, not publicly stated.'
(2) Is there a risk in on-site speeches?
In forum or meetup type events, guest speech content is often uncontrollable. But please note, as long as the event is organized by the organizer, its content responsibility may 'return to you.'
In practice, regulatory authorities often do not only look at whether the organizer 'personally promotes.' As long as you are the event organizer or hosting platform, whether it is a guest 'leaking' information on-site, a PPT featuring token roadmaps, or interview segments suggesting token trading opportunities, regulators may determine that you have not fulfilled your content review obligations, thereby bearing joint risks.
Another typical 'compliance hidden danger' is indirect support for overseas platforms or services. For example, if a project arranges a platform representative to speak, QR codes for registration, or embeds technical product demonstrations during the event. Although the organizer does not directly involve tokens or provide trading entry, it may ultimately be classified as facilitating illegal financial activities due to 'providing convenience for overseas platforms to operate domestically.'
Therefore, event organizers must review the content of guest speeches in advance and remind the speaking guests on-site, especially for shares involving tokens, platforms, and projects, to avoid guiding investment, displaying trading logic, or implying price trends. At the same time, during the speeches, try to maintain control of the venue.
(3) Are there any loopholes in the funding and venue aspects?
Do not underestimate the compliance sensitivity behind 'charging admission' or 'accepting sponsorship.' Using cryptocurrencies to charge admission or accepting token sponsorships varies greatly in compliance across different regions. For example, in strictly regulated areas like mainland China, regulatory authorities have repeatedly emphasized that virtual currency cannot be used as a payment tool. If the event charges using tokens like USDT, it may be seen as providing virtual currency payment services, thereby being classified as 'illegal financial activities.'
Even in relatively open areas like Hong Kong and Dubai, if the sponsor is a sensitive entity such as an unlicensed overseas trading platform or crypto investment institution, the event organizer may also be considered to be 'assisting unauthorized virtual asset service providers to operate,' especially when the event content includes project promotion, brand exposure, etc., which poses higher risks.
At the same time, the selection of the event venue also has compliance standards, such as whether the venue is legal, whether it is open to the public, whether it needs temporary filing, whether it exceeds the maximum number of participants, and whether there are foreign attendees or representatives from sensitive countries. Many organizers may not consider these issues clearly in the initial planning, but in some jurisdictions, such as mainland China, stepping on these issues may directly be classified as 'illegal assembly' or 'overseas operations.' In places like Hong Kong, attention should also be paid to using commercial venues and clearly informing the owner or management agency of the event content to avoid venue disputes due to 'crypto' attributes.
In addition to the three stages mentioned above, the use of data and imagery is becoming a new high-risk compliance area. Common behaviors during events, such as full audio and video recordings, participant information collection, and social media live broadcasts, if not authorized or without informing the purpose, may infringe on participants' portrait rights and privacy rights, and even trigger compliance red lines in cross-border data flows.
Step 3: Event Review Stage
Once the event is over, is it really 'all good'? Lawyer Mankun believes: not necessarily.
In actual law enforcement, many projects are not held accountable because of issues at the event site, but rather because of the 'traces' left after the event. Especially in areas such as social media records, data archiving, and the flow of sponsorship funds, mishandling can easily become a breakthrough for subsequent investigations.
Therefore, Lawyer Mankun reminds: a truly complete compliance loop must include post-event review management.
(1) Is there a 'compliance record' left?
The project team must compile and retain the following key materials after the event to respond to potential investigations or inquiries:
Guest speech drafts, PPTs, or summary versions of speeches;
On-site video/audio materials (if recorded);
Final draft of promotional materials and list of distribution channels;
Basic participant registration information (if there is a registration phase);
Venue rental, sponsorship agreements, and other contractual documents;
Detailed income and expenditure records of the event, especially explanations related to tokens.
These materials are not meant for 'proactive filing,' but can help the project prove the compliance intention of the event and that the organizer has fulfilled reasonable review obligations when facing compliance inquiries in the future.
(2) Is there a 'statement tracing' mechanism?
If there are token-related contents in the event, the organizer needs to establish a mechanism for tracing statements, clarifying who provides what content and whether the remarks have been reviewed.
Especially for guest self-led speech parts, it is recommended to clarify the legal responsibility of guests for their own remarks by signing a responsibility statement or risk reminder letter before the event, to avoid a situation where 'guest oversteps, organizer takes the blame.'
In addition, whether the recorded content will be made public should also be planned in advance: which content can be disseminated in the public domain, and which is for internal archiving only. If the content involves token information, the potential legal impacts on specific groups (such as mainland users) should be assessed.
(3) Is there a 'post-event public opinion handling plan'?
Web3 events often come with high exposure and community fermentation. An event originally intended for 'internal communication' may suddenly trend on social media due to a single comment from a KOL.
In this scenario, the organizer should have basic contingency plans:
Is there timely monitoring of the communication content related to the event?
If misleading statements or risk remarks appear, is there a prompt clarification and removal?
Can there be a unified voice in the community to explain the compliance boundaries of the event?
If you let the communication ferment and produce distorted descriptions like 'organizers publicly promoting projects' or 'domestically promoting tokens,' then even if the event itself is designed to be compliant, it may step on landmines in 'secondary dissemination.'
Therefore, from a compliance perspective, the 'closure' of the post-event review stage also determines whether the risk loop of the event is truly completed.
Summary by Lawyer Mankun
Hosting a Web3 event is never just about process arrangements and guest invitations.
Truly safe offline events rely not on 'not having incidents' but on legally and compliantly designing every aspect from the beginning. The earlier compliance is involved, the more proactive one can be, allowing for more peace of mind to 'go out.'
In the increasingly tightening global regulatory context, every offline event of Web3 is actually a signal released by the project externally, and the organizer and the event itself naturally become a window for bearing risks. You may think it is just a cocktail party or organizing a meetup, but from the regulatory perspective, it could be seen as marketing, fundraising, or operating.
Therefore, for organizers, the optimal path has always been to 'control maximum risk at minimum cost.'
It is foreseeable that Web3 events will become increasingly diversified, and the institutional construction behind the events has already begun.
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