“Since traditional financial institutions have no relevant prior infrastructure, and have gone from zero to one in various aspects such as products and teams, the cost [associated with VASPs] has been very high. However, even for an experienced cryptocurrency institution, the cost of obtaining a license is not cheap.”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/web3-firms-are-spending-up-to-25m-on-hk-crypto-licenses
Web3 is a failed experiment. So I am not getting the point of spending so much money just for license. But I am sure the companies will have their own reasons to spend that much money.
One best part of doing business in countries like HK or SG, is their infrastructure and less regulatory burden. Also web3 has all potential to become another money laundering playground just like the NFT. So probably these companies are smelling opportunities there.