There is less than half a year left for the new rich and "old money" to get a head start.

Author: Xie Zhaoqing, Tencent News "Periscope"

Ho Wong-cheung, head of the Digital Finance Department of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) responsible for the approval of stablecoin licenses and related businesses, is one of the hottest names in Hong Kong recently. The "Stablecoin Regulation" announced by the Hong Kong government will be implemented on August 1, and stablecoins will be included in licensed management. "Old money" and the new rich are lining up to visit the HKMA's Digital Finance Department in hopes of gaining an advantage in next month's license application opening.

"The external interest in Hong Kong's stablecoins this time is far greater than in the past few years," revealed an industry insider who is very familiar with Hong Kong's cryptocurrency scene and frequently interacts with the HKMA. This is evident from the enthusiasm of Chinese-funded institutions in Hong Kong flocking to knock on the HKMA's door.

Stablecoins, which originated in the "crypto circle," aim to maintain a relatively stable value by being pegged to a relatively stable asset (such as fiat currency, commodities, or a basket of assets). This year, due to strong support from the Trump administration, they have quickly entered the mainstream. Currently, the main types of stablecoins on the market include fiat-collateralized stablecoins, cryptocurrency-collateralized stablecoins, and algorithmic stablecoins.

Unlike previous narratives, blockchain-based stablecoins are relatively more convenient, efficient, and low-cost in terms of payments and transactions, making their future prospects promising, especially in cross-border payments. At the same time, this is seen as one of the biggest development opportunities for Hong Kong in the future.

However, the "Stablecoin Regulation" announced by the Hong Kong government is essentially a legal framework, and the specific application details and possible guidelines have not yet been mentioned. Many individuals or institutions eager to participate in the stablecoin market hope to learn more.

The stablecoins announced by the Hong Kong government are pegged to fiat currency, specifically collateralized stablecoins at a 1:1 face value ratio, but the government has not restricted the types of fiat currencies that can be pegged. By being pegged to fiat currency, stablecoins provide a relatively stable form of cryptocurrency, thereby reducing the volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies.

Over 20 Chinese-funded institutions have met with the HKMA

Tencent News "Periscope" has learned that over the past period, more than 20 Chinese-funded institutions have met with the HKMA's financial technology department responsible for stablecoins. These institutions include, but are not limited to, Chinese-funded financial institutions in Hong Kong, state-owned enterprises, and industrial institutions. Ho Wong-cheung and his team have been relatively busier than before.

In addition to these actively engaged Chinese-funded institutions, some "old money" figures who have been out of the spotlight in the wealthy circles and financial markets for a while are also actively "organizing" teams in Central to participate in Hong Kong's stablecoin business. This includes Dai Yongge, the actual controller of Renhe Commercial Group, Lin Chong, the former CEO of Haitong International who was once known as "Central's Big Brother," and Zhai Jun, founder of Yunlong Capital.

In addition, institutions such as Hony Capital, affiliated with Lenovo, are also actively preparing stablecoin business teams in Hong Kong. Hony Capital applied to join the Hong Kong government's stablecoin "sandbox" in 2024. However, as of the time of publication, this news has not been commented on by Hony Capital.

Previously, in July 2024, the Hong Kong government announced three institutions that entered the sandbox, including JD Coin Chain Technology (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., Yuan Coin Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., and Hong Kong Telecom, owned by Li Ka-shing.

Ant Group's Ant International and Ant Digital Technology are actively communicating with regulators to apply for stablecoin licenses. Ant International and Ant Digital Technology are both entrepreneurial entities under Ant Group. In 2024, Ant Group restructured and established an innovation business segment, which includes Ant International, Ant Digital Technology, and OceanBase, among others. Ant Group's chairman and CEO, Jing Xiandong, serves as the chairman of Ant International, while Han Xinyi is the chairman of Ant Digital Technology. Ant International and Ant Digital Technology operate independently. Previously, Ant Group stated, "We support the innovation business segment in accelerating its market entry."

Tencent News "Periscope" has learned that the teams of Ant International and Ant Digital Technology have been conducting "crypto circle" related businesses in Hong Kong for some time. Ant Digital Technology has been promoting RWA (Real World Assets) business in the crypto circle in Hong Kong, which may become one of its application scenarios for applying for a stablecoin license.

RWA refers to the tokenization of real-world assets, especially those that can generate stable income, such as hotel leases, photovoltaic power generation, and even stocks, bonds, and commodities, which can be tokenized using blockchain technology, allowing them to be traded, managed, and circulated on-chain.

In simple terms, RWA is the tokenization of real-world assets, utilizing blockchain technology for trading and management. This business essentially assists traditional assets in financing—over the past few years, several teams in Hong Kong, including Ant Digital Technology, have been engaged in such businesses.

Compared to simpler and clearer application scenarios like cross-border payments, some industry insiders are not optimistic about the direction of combining RWA with stablecoins. However, in addition to Ant Digital Technology, the JD Coin Chain team is also actively exploring this business direction, having "poached" several people from Ant Digital Technology's RWA team.

At the same time, JD Coin Chain has publicly announced its intention to apply for a stablecoin license in Hong Kong. However, in addition to the RWA direction related to JD International Logistics, JD's proposal also involves cross-border payment scenarios for JD Mall in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, but its scale is much smaller than that of Ant International's Wanlihui and other cross-border payments.

Wanlihui is a foreign exchange company acquired by Ant Group in 2019, focusing on providing international payment services for businesses and individual sellers, with its main business being international remittances, foreign exchange options trading, and international e-commerce platform collection and settlement.

Public data shows that since Ant Group's acquisition, the company's business has grown rapidly based on Alibaba's e-commerce business. By the end of 2024, Wanlihui's global cumulative transaction amount exceeded $300 billion, serving over 1 million merchants.

Tencent News "Periscope" has learned that Ant International may apply for a stablecoin license in Hong Kong using Wanlihui as a scenario. This is also the payment application scenario that the HKMA is most concerned about.

Given the advantages of stablecoins in achieving cross-border payments under blockchain technology, including low costs and high efficiency, they have enormous potential in cross-border payments—therefore, the aforementioned "old money" and new rich are actively seeking cooperation with "cross-border payment scenario companies."

Tencent News "Periscope" has learned that during this period, many companies involved in cross-border payments are actively contacting some local consortiums in Hong Kong to jointly apply for stablecoin licenses.

According to incomplete statistics, dozens of teams have begun to form to apply for stablecoin licenses in the Hong Kong market.

Rushing to seize the trillion-level stablecoin market

This time, whether Hong Kong's "crypto circle" industry can take off still has a long observation window. Some relatively pessimistic figures in the crypto circle are concerned that this time may again see a phenomenon of "loud thunder but little rain."

This is because the Hong Kong government has been actively involved in the "digital currency" industry for more than three years, and so far, there has been no large-scale development in the industry, with most digital currency businesses in Hong Kong currently unable to achieve a balance between income and expenditure.

As early as 2022, under the impact of geopolitical tensions, the pandemic, and other fluctuations, the Hong Kong government actively expanded its thinking and decided to participate in the Web 3.0 industry from a compliance market perspective. Subsequently, the government released the "Policy Declaration on the Development of Virtual Assets in Hong Kong" (referred to as "Declaration 1.0"). For a time, Hong Kong became the global center of the crypto circle, with related forums held in Hong Kong, where Ethereum founder Vitalik also appeared, leading to a phenomenon of "tickets being hard to come by."

After that, the Hong Kong government launched applications for compliant virtual asset fund licenses, compliant virtual asset exchange licenses, and products such as spot Bitcoin ETFs around the development of the "digital currency" industry.

However, the scale of these license businesses and ETF products is still in the climbing stage. Three years later, many institutions have obtained virtual asset fund management licenses, but very few have actually issued virtual asset-related products; the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has issued a total of 11 licenses for virtual asset exchanges over the past three years—however, the main business of these exchanges is still in a loss state, even the main business revenue of leading institutions like Hashkey Group's exchange is not optimistic.

"Products in the crypto circle, if they follow a compliant route, are quite difficult, whether it's funds or exchanges," some industry insiders lamented, noting that some exchanges, including leading exchange OKX, ultimately gave up applying for licenses in Hong Kong after multiple communications with the regulatory authorities.

"However, this time, it is completely different. This is of epoch-making significance. The launch of the 'Hong Kong Digital Asset Development Policy Declaration 2.0' (referred to as 'Declaration 2.0') and the 'Stablecoin Regulation' means that the crypto circle and traditional finance and industry have truly connected," a business leader at Hashkey Exchange told Tencent News "Periscope." Hashkey Group's chairman, Xiao Feng, has also stated on multiple occasions that the implementation of "Declaration 2.0" and the "Stablecoin Regulation" means that Hong Kong not only wants to develop Web 3.0 but also truly link Web 3.0 with traditional finance.

On June 20, the Hong Kong government released "Declaration 2.0," establishing the "LEAP" framework, where LEAP is an acronym for: Legal and regulatory streamlining, Expanding the suite of tokenized products, Advancing use cases and cross-sectoral collaboration, People and partnership development.

Under this framework, the Hong Kong government aims to promote the compliance, scaling, and globalization of digital assets, specifically including: optimizing laws and regulations, clarifying the stablecoin licensing mechanism, promoting the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), and providing tax incentives for tokenized ETFs and digital asset funds.

Previously, whether it was the launch of virtual asset exchanges, virtual asset fund management, or spot ETF products—these were limited to on-chain assets based on Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc., and had not linked with traditional systems.

Now, with "Declaration 2.0" and the "Stablecoin Regulation," Hong Kong has shifted from a "testing ground" for the crypto circle to real industrial development.

Several individuals who have participated in the application for licenses from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the issuance of tokenized products told Tencent News "Periscope" that the Hong Kong government's determination this time is very firm, with the most important changes reflected in three aspects: incorporating stablecoins into regulation, viewing RWA (real-world assets) tokenization as a key industry, and providing tax exemptions for tokenized ETFs and digital asset funds.

Now, stablecoins and tokenized products like RWA can truly connect with the real economy for the first time: the crypto circle and traditional industries can mutually "flow back."

"The prospects for stablecoins are very promising; this could be an opportunity to reshape the global currency market, and the stablecoin market is developing rapidly," an industry insider who has been closely following the stablecoin market told Tencent News "Periscope." He and his team are also actively preparing for the application for a Hong Kong stablecoin license.

Previously, on May 19, 2025, the U.S. Senate passed the "GENIUS Act," officially incorporating dollar stablecoins into the "digitalization of the dollar" system—this is one of the reasons for the market's excitement, as the vast majority of products in the current stablecoin market are pegged to the dollar.

Data analysis platform OKG Research shows that the global stablecoin market is rapidly growing and is expected to continue expanding in the coming years. In the first quarter of 2025, the on-chain settlement scale of stablecoins exceeded $3.7 trillion, with an annualized trading volume expected to exceed $9.8 trillion. At the same time, the market capitalization of stablecoins has approached $250 billion, growing more than 22 times in five years.

According to data from OKG Research, as global stablecoin legislation accelerates, the global stablecoin market supply is expected to reach $3 trillion by 2030, with annual trading volume exceeding $100 trillion. In an optimistic scenario, OKG Research predicts that the global stablecoin market supply will reach $3 trillion by 2030, with annual trading volume surpassing $100 trillion.

Among the stablecoin payment application scenarios that the Hong Kong government is particularly concerned about, OKG Research's data shows that the annual settlement volume of stablecoin payments will reach $50.8 billion in 2024, accounting for 7.3% of the global personal cross-border remittance market, and maintaining an annual growth rate of over 60% for two consecutive years.

Many industry insiders have revealed that the final number of stablecoin licenses issued by the Hong Kong government will not exceed 10, and "many will ultimately become also-rans." Based on previous experiences with virtual asset exchange applications, the regulatory framework design and implementation for preparing stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong will incur annual expenses of at least HKD 200 million. Even after obtaining a license, it may take at least 1 to 2 years to achieve a balance between income and expenditure.

This means that teams wishing to participate in the stablecoin license application in Hong Kong will need to invest at least HKD 200 million to HKD 400 million upfront if they are among the first batch to obtain a license.

Despite dozens of teams rushing to apply for stablecoin licenses, obtaining a stablecoin license in Hong Kong is not an easy task. Based on past experiences, following the Hong Kong government's approval pace, the list of institutions that will be granted stablecoin licenses in the first batch may not appear until the end of December 2025 at the earliest.

There is now less than half a year left for the new rich and "old money" to get a head start.

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