Over the weekend, I came across two pieces of news:

First, Tencent is in talks to invest in a cryptocurrency company.

It is reported that the well-known market maker Wintermute is in talks to raise funds from Tencent and other investors. Although the details of the deal have not been disclosed, if successful, Wintermute will raise $200 to $300 million from Tencent and other investors.

Second, JD.com is entering the stablecoin ecosystem in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the launch of the "sandbox" program for stablecoin issuers in March this year. On July 18, the Monetary Authority announced the first batch of three participating institutions, one of which is "JD Coin Chain Technology (Hong Kong) Limited," which has attracted a lot of attention. Many believe that this company has close ties to JD.com.

However, I have a question about the "stablecoin" here: Is it issued as an ERC-20 token in the Ethereum ecosystem or on a consortium chain?

If it is issued on a consortium chain, then it is not very meaningful. If it is issued in the Ethereum ecosystem, then it is very promising.

In the following article, I assume that this stablecoin is an ERC-20 token issued in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The businesses involved in these two pieces of news are not difficult to understand.

Many players in the industry are familiar with Wintermute, and one of its main businesses is providing liquidity to exchanges.

From a business perspective, this type of business is a necessity in the ecosystem, and the business logic and profit model are very clear, so the uncertainty is relatively controllable.

In the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem, it is a capital-intensive niche, and entering this niche requires a certain amount of capital.

This type of niche is very suitable for the entry of industry giants. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why Tencent is entering this niche by investing in a leading company.

JD.com's entry into stablecoins is a bit surprising to me, mainly because we have heard very little about JD.com in the cryptocurrency ecosystem in recent years. But on second thought, since JD.com offers credit services, it indicates that it has certain ambitions in the financial sector.

However, in the past few years, the lessons learned by Ant Group in the traditional financial sector may have made JD.com cautious about its ambitions and subsequent plans in this area, forcing it to focus its attention and vision on areas outside of traditional finance. The cryptocurrency ecosystem inherently has financial attributes, making it understandable that it becomes JD.com's next target for entry.

After seeing these two pieces of news, I have a few thoughts:

First, internet giants in China have already expanded to the fullest domestically, and expanding into other areas, especially the cryptocurrency ecosystem, is probably an inevitable choice for every giant.

In other areas, there are currently two that have shown a certain trend and are rapidly growing in my opinion: one is artificial intelligence, and the other is cryptocurrency assets.

Under the geopolitical interference, it is probably difficult for Chinese internet giants to enter the field of artificial intelligence, and even if they do, it is probably difficult for them to establish their own ecosystem and position due to technological limitations.

Relatively speaking, the cryptocurrency ecosystem is still in a relatively early stage, and no country or region has established insurmountable barriers. Therefore, the entry of Chinese giants into this ecosystem is less likely to be significantly affected by geopolitical interference.

Regarding Tencent's investment in Wintermute, if Wintermute were an artificial intelligence company, it probably wouldn't even dare to seek investment from Tencent. Because it is a cryptocurrency company, it does not have this concern in this regard.

Second, in recent years, the attitude of domestic giants towards the cryptocurrency ecosystem has mainly been one of observation, but there will probably be many substantive actions in the next step.

In the past two years, when I participated in cryptocurrency ecosystem events in Hong Kong, I often saw the presence of Ant Group and Tencent. However, they mostly participated as audience members in various events, and rarely promoted their own projects as project parties. Perhaps at that time, they had not yet found their position and entry point in the ecosystem.

But now, the actions of Tencent and JD.com indicate that the giants are gradually starting to substantively test the waters in this field. I believe this trend will only become stronger.

Third, I am more looking forward to the development and influence of Hong Kong in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Comparing the actions of Tencent and JD.com, I think JD.com's layout has a more profound impact, because JD.com is laying the foundation of the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem: stablecoins.

Although I do not like centralized stablecoins, we cannot deny that for most users, centralized stablecoins may be a better choice.

In terms of issuing stablecoins, I believe Hong Kong has no problem.

Because the Hong Kong dollar itself can be seen as a "stablecoin" anchored to the US dollar. Hong Kong has accumulated enough experience in this regard, and issuing stablecoins in the cryptocurrency ecosystem only needs to address some regulatory issues. With the current strong efforts of the Hong Kong government to promote the cryptocurrency ecosystem, these issues are unlikely to be long-term obstacles.

Once Hong Kong achieves strong regulatory implementation in stablecoins, I believe that at least in terms of fund inflow and outflow, Hong Kong will have its own unique advantages.

For us individual users, what does this mean?

I think the most important thing is for us to focus on how to leverage Hong Kong's advantages in this regard to serve our transactions and fund inflow and outflow in this ecosystem.

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