Stablecoins have become an important part of JD's international business.

Written by: Golem (@web3_golem)

After shaking up the food delivery industry, JD is accelerating its entry into the payment sector.

On June 17, JD Group Chairman Liu Qiangdong stated, "JD hopes to apply for stablecoin licenses in all major currency countries globally, and then use these licenses to facilitate foreign exchange between global enterprises, reducing cross-border payment costs by 90% and increasing efficiency to within 10 seconds. Liu Qiangdong mentioned that remittances between enterprises currently take an average of 2 to 4 days and are quite costly. After completing B-end payments, we will penetrate into C-end payments, hoping that one day everyone can use JD stablecoins for payments while consuming around the world."

Liu Qiangdong's remarks reveal JD's ambition for stablecoins in cross-border payment business. For most domestic Web2 giants, while there is some layout in blockchain and other Web3-related businesses, they are mostly strategic experiments or overseas incubations, considered marginal businesses. In contrast, JD's exploration in blockchain and stablecoins is relatively advanced.

As early as July 2024, JD's subsidiary JD Coin Chain Technology (Hong Kong) was included in the participant list of Hong Kong's stablecoin issuer "sandbox." It has already integrated stablecoins into the group's strategic development blueprint.

Yesterday, just hours before the June 18 major test, Liu Qiangdong shared with the media at JD's headquarters in Beijing Yizhuang Building 1, "Next, we will successively release several new projects, including the already issued stablecoins. JD does not plan to introduce entirely new business models, but will deepen and strengthen the existing seven or eight business models centered around the supply chain, along with international business. This is roughly our strategy." This shows the importance he places on the stablecoin business.

Missing the opportunity to become a payment giant—Liu Qiangdong's biggest mistake

Liu Qiangdong's emphasis on the stablecoin business may stem not only from the advantages of stablecoins in cross-border payments, such as instant settlement and reduced remittance costs, but also from his desire to make up for his past mistakes in the payment sector.

In earlier years, Liu Qiangdong publicly stated that his biggest mistake was not developing his own payment business after receiving investment. "We always thought payment had little value, but with the recent popularization of quick payments, to expand the customer base for financial products, we still need to develop payment first."

From the results, this indeed seems to be a decision Liu Qiangdong regrets. Data shows that in 2024, the transaction scale of China's third-party internet payment market was approximately 33.9 trillion yuan. In terms of market share, UnionPay Business ranked first with 26.63%, followed closely by Alipay at 20.70%, and WeChat Pay at 18.31%, while JD Pay only accounted for 1-3% of the market share. In the C-end mobile payment sector, Alipay and WeChat Pay have formed a "dual oligopoly" situation, with a combined market share exceeding 90%, making it unrealistic for JD to seize domestic payment business.

However, in the cross-border payment sector, Liu Qiangdong may indeed have an opportunity to capture market share through stablecoins. Currently, cross-border digital RMB and third-party cross-border payment systems are in the development phase, but China's cross-border payments are still primarily dominated by the banking system (CIPS), which processed a cumulative 8.2169 million transactions amounting to 175.49 trillion yuan in 2024. Although the pilot for cross-border digital RMB has covered 129 countries and regions that year, the annual service scale was only 7.5 trillion yuan. The combined market scale for cross-border e-commerce payments and B2B foreign trade payments through third-party systems like Alipay and WeChat Pay was 15.34 trillion yuan in 2024.

Despite traditional internet third-party cross-border payment systems showing clear advantages over banking systems in terms of fees, speed, and user experience, their underlying clearing systems still rely on bank networks. They also face challenges such as difficulties in license applications, inability to handle large settlements, and insufficient fund security, which often limits their business to small and medium-sized e-commerce scenarios, making it hard to compete with banking systems.

Stablecoins, on the other hand, can effectively avoid the issues faced by third-party cross-border payment systems. While stablecoins are pegged to fiat currencies, they do not rely on bank system settlements but instead settle in real-time through blockchain networks. Furthermore, theoretically, as long as stablecoins obtain regulatory approval locally, they can circulate globally, and there is currently a trend among global regulators to embrace stablecoins, further reducing compliance difficulties.

The advantages of stablecoins over traditional banks and third-party payments in cross-border payments

A true entrepreneur must be adept at learning from past mistakes: during the rise of third-party internet payments in 2007-2008, Liu Qiangdong failed to accurately assess the situation, missing the golden opportunity to expand domestic payment business; now, the recognition of stablecoins by the U.S. market and regulators has accelerated the attention of enterprises and regulators worldwide towards stablecoins, which will reshape the cross-border payment landscape, and this time JD has not missed the opportunity.

Stablecoins have become an important part of JD's international business

JD's exploration of blockchain began as early as 2016, and it subsequently launched various projects such as the consortium chain Zhizhen Chain, a blockchain anti-counterfeiting traceability platform, and the NFT platform "Lingxi." However, these were all exploratory and experimental marginal businesses compared to JD's main operations and did not integrate into the collective strategy.

In July 2024, JD Technology Group's subsidiary JD Coin Chain Technology (Hong Kong) appeared on the participant list of Hong Kong's stablecoin issuer sandbox and announced plans to issue a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the Hong Kong dollar, officially starting JD's stablecoin journey.

After a year of exploration, in May 2025, JD Coin Chain Technology CEO Liu Peng announced the progress of JD's stablecoin, stating, "The first phase of JD's stablecoin is tentatively set to issue stablecoins pegged to the Hong Kong dollar and the U.S. dollar, with testing scenarios mainly including cross-border payments, investment transactions, and retail payments."

It wasn't until June 17 that Liu Qiangdong mentioned stablecoins in JD's future strategy, clarifying the main line of the stablecoin business and its position in JD's strategy. "The most important point for the future is internationalization," Liu Qiangdong stated when discussing the company's strategy with reporters. "JD's international business does not follow the cross-border e-commerce model; my international business strategy is local e-commerce, local infrastructure, local employees, local procurement, local shipping, and only selling branded products."

On June 18, JD Coin Chain Technology CEO Liu Peng announced that JD's self-operated e-commerce in Hong Kong and Macau would soon support stablecoin shopping. JD Coin Chain plans to obtain a license in early Q4 2025 and simultaneously launch stablecoins pegged to the Hong Kong dollar and other currencies.

Perhaps this is also why Liu Qiangdong wants to apply for stablecoin licenses in all major currency countries, using stablecoins to settle international business. This not only avoids the need for multiple fiat currency exchanges and exchange rate fluctuations in different countries but also facilitates JD in building a unified global settlement network.

Unfortunately, in the past five years, JD has not introduced anything new. Frankly speaking, the last five years can be described as JD's lost five years, a downward spiral, and it can be said without hesitation that it should be considered the five years in my entrepreneurial history with no growth, no progress, no innovation, the least distinctive, and the least value contribution. Liu Qiangdong expressed with a hint of regret.

The strategic moves into the food delivery industry, stablecoins, and internationalization may reflect Liu Qiangdong's reflections on the past five years in business. What kind of results JD will deliver in the next five years will not only shake up the landscape of China's internet and finance.

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