From Strategy to Implementation: How is Hong Kong Layouting Stablecoins, Tokenization, and Web3?

Compiled & Written by: KarenZ, Foresight News

On September 16, Hong Kong successively released the "First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (2026—2030)" and the "Chief Executive's 2026 Policy Address," jointly outlining the development direction of Hong Kong for the coming years.

The former focuses on medium- to long-term strategies, clearly defining the development objectives for Hong Kong by 2030; the latter emphasizes policy execution, further translating the directions of the five-year plan into regulatory systems, infrastructure, pilot projects, and timetables.

In terms of stablecoins, tokenization, Web3, blockchain, and virtual assets, the two documents form a relatively clear connection: the five-year plan proposes to build a regulated digital asset market, while the policy address further answers how Hong Kong plans to license, trade, settle, custodian, and control risks.

What do the Five-Year Plan and Policy Address say?

The first five-year plan of Hong Kong is divided into seven parts and twenty-eight chapters. The plan focuses on consolidating Hong Kong's unique advantages, with key points including strengthening the four major centers of international finance, shipping, trade, and aviation, building an international innovation technology center, and creating a highland for gathering international high-end talent; accelerating the construction of the Northern Metropolis; deepening cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and with the mainland; expanding the "Belt and Road" and international cooperation networks; improving education, healthcare, housing, elderly care, and other livelihood areas; while enhancing security governance and public governance capabilities.

In terms of economic development, the plan particularly emphasizes consolidating Hong Kong's position as an international financial center, a global offshore RMB business hub, and an international asset and wealth management center, while listing digital finance as a high-end financial service that Hong Kong should actively develop.

The 2026 policy address is more specific. The report elaborates on aspects including formulating and implementing Hong Kong's first five-year plan, safeguarding national security, strengthening the "four major centers" and talent highlands, leveraging international advantages, accelerating the Northern Metropolis construction, integrating into the national development landscape, improving people’s livelihood, and coordinating development with security. Compared to the five-year plan, the policy address adds specific responsible agencies, regulatory arrangements, implementation projects, and target years, operationalizing the five-year plan on an annual and project basis.

Stablecoins: From "Prudent Development" to Licensed Trading and Actual Settlement

The five-year plan includes stablecoins in the category of "emerging digital assets" on page 27, alongside central bank digital currencies, tokenized deposits, tokenized bonds, and tokenized securities products, stating to "prudent promote" the development of these assets. This indicates that stablecoins have entered Hong Kong's medium- to long-term financial development framework.

The policy address clearly advances this point. Paragraph 49 suggests, promoting regulated stablecoins to be traded on licensed virtual asset trading platforms and used for settling tokenized money market funds. This statement contains at least three levels of policy implications:

First, the premise for the development of stablecoins is "regulated," and not the unconditional entry of various stablecoins into the Hong Kong market.

Second, the trading venues for stablecoins will connect with licensed virtual asset trading platforms, meaning that stablecoins will be integrated into the existing market regulatory system.

Third, the use of stablecoins will not be limited to the buying and selling of virtual assets, but extend to settlement in traditional financial products like tokenized funds, thus becoming a tool that connects the digital asset market with the traditional financial market.

Therefore, the focus of Hong Kong's stablecoin policy is not on developing purely cryptocurrency payments, but on exploring the settlement value of regulated stablecoins in funds, securities, and other tokenized financial products.

Tokenization: The Most Specific Digital Asset Line in Two Reports

Compared to the relatively broad concept of "Web3," tokenization is the direction with the richest content and highest level of implementation in the two documents.

The five-year plan lists financial tokenization as one of the four key areas of fintech and proposes to promote the practical application of tokenization technology across different asset classes and application scenarios through the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Ensemble project. The plan also proposes to normalize the issuance of government digital bonds and improve relevant legal and market support.

The policy address further lists multiple specific projects.

First is digital bonds. The report states that in the first half of 2025 to 2026, the digital bonds issued by Hong Kong will account for about half of the global issuance scale. The government plans to regularly issue digital bonds, exploring the use of different digital currencies for settlement and extending its application to the full lifecycle of bonds, including dividends and redemptions.

Second is the tokenization of foreign exchange fund notes. The Monetary Authority plans to pilot the tokenization of foreign exchange fund notes, allowing banks to utilize over HKD 13 trillion in foreign exchange fund notes around the clock, improving asset-liability management efficiency.

Third is improving market infrastructure. The Monetary Authority's "Tokenized Bond Expert Group" will continue to research innovative solutions and review the relevant legal framework, pushing for the application of distributed ledger technology in capital markets. The MU OmniClear will also build a digital asset platform to provide one-stop services for digital bond issuance and settlement.

Fourth is the tokenization of real-world assets. The policy address explicitly proposes to improve the regulatory framework for tokenized investment products and promote the issuance and trading of gold and other suitable real-world assets on licensed platforms. This indicates that Hong Kong's tokenization policy has expanded from bonds to assets like gold, warehouse receipts, and carbon credits.

Fifth is tokenized warehouse receipts and trade financing. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange plans to launch a pilot project for tokenized warehouse receipt financing, allowing enterprises to obtain financing based on inventory; at the same time, it will build a blockchain-supported multi-asset tokenization platform, incorporating carbon credits and warehouse receipts of commodities recognized by the London Metal Exchange into the pilot.

Sixth is tokenized deposit applications. The Monetary Authority aims to complete the central bank digital currency settlement and round-the-clock operational arrangements for EnsembleTX by the end of this year and explore more tokenized deposit applications.

Overall, Hong Kong aims to advance tokenization from conceptual display to a complete financial process involving issuance, trading, collateralization, financing, settlement, distribution, and redemption.

Web3 and Blockchain: Emphasizing Industry Cultivation, More So Emphasizing Practical Applications

The five-year plan does not directly mention the term "Web3," but lists blockchain and fintech as one of the key digital technology directions for the development of Cyberport. This indicates that blockchain is regarded as part of Hong Kong's innovative technology and financial infrastructure, rather than a separate development policy segment.

The policy address explicitly refers to Web3. The report states that Hong Kong has nurtured about 20 unicorn companies covering emerging industries such as fintech, artificial intelligence, logistics innovation, Web3 and blockchain, biotechnology, and smart manufacturing; Cyberport will also continue to focus on artificial intelligence, data science, blockchain, cybersecurity, and fintech to support enterprise financing, going global, and talent cultivation.

However, from a specific policy perspective, Hong Kong's emphasis on blockchain primarily focuses on applications that can service the real economy and traditional finance, including:

• Using distributed ledger technology to issue and settle digital bonds;
• The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is building a blockchain-supported multi-asset tokenization platform, which has incorporated carbon credits listed on Core Climate2 and plans to include warehouse receipts of commodities recognized by the LME as a pilot next year, facilitating flexible collateral and cross-collateral in the market;
• The Hong Kong Stock Exchange strives to launch a pilot project for tokenized warehouse receipt financing in collaboration with designated banks by 2027, leveraging physical tracking technology to support enterprises in obtaining liquidity with inventory as collateral.
• The Port Community System (PCS) will support trade financing with trusted logistics data and will further rely on blockchain technology for offshore trade goods tracking, expanding the system's coverage.
• The Monetary Authority will explore more scenarios for tokenized deposit applications, including collaborating with the mainland to research trade financing use cases, aiming to complete pilot transactions by the end of the year.

Virtual Assets: Improving Licensing Systems while Strengthening Custody and Anti-Money Laundering

The five-year plan does not directly use the term "virtual assets," but refers to them as "digital assets" in its primary policy expressions. The plan proposes to build a world-leading licensing and regulatory system for digital assets according to the principle of "same business, same risk, same rules," while promoting market liquidity and product innovation.

The policy address then directly uses the terms "digital assets" and "virtual assets," proposing a more comprehensive implementation arrangement.

First, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) will improve the virtual asset licensing system, establishing specific regulatory guidelines to clarify compliance paths for virtual asset service providers.

Second, tokenized products and stablecoins will be issued, traded, or settled on licensed platforms. Thus, licensed platforms will become an important market infrastructure connecting virtual assets, stablecoins, and traditional financial products in Hong Kong.

Third, regulation will extend from licensing to custody, trading monitoring, and anti-money laundering. The SFC will operate a digital asset custody monitoring system and plans to launch the CrypTech project by 2027 to carry out market and anti-money laundering monitoring through big data.

The implementation checklist of the policy address also states that Hong Kong Customs plans to launch a "Digital Asset Transaction Analysis System" and a "Customs Anti-Money Laundering Intelligent Analysis System" by 2029, to collect and analyze virtual asset and financial intelligence; by 2030, these will be integrated with systems for remittances, currency exchanges, cash declarations, and precious metals trading.

These arrangements show that Hong Kong is preparing to establish a regulatory chain covering licensing, platform trading, asset custody, market monitoring, anti-money laundering, and cross-border fund analysis.

Digital Currency and Cross-Border Finance

The five-year plan proposes to prudently promote central bank digital currency and expand the application of digital RMB and cross-border RMB settlement in cooperation with Qianhai.

The policy address further proposes to introduce a central bank digital currency at the wholesale level in post-derivative product trading, i.e., the "digital Hong Kong dollar" payment solution, with real transactions within this year as a testing goal. Meanwhile, EnsembleTX will improve CBDC settlement and 24-hour round-the-clock operational arrangements.

Conclusion

Summarizing both documents, Hong Kong's digital asset roadmap can be summarized as: regulatory preconditions, tokenization as the main line, licensed platforms as entry points, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies as settlement tools, and market monitoring and anti-money laundering systems to control risks.

The five-year plan is responsible for establishing direction, proposing the development of digital finance, digital assets, stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, and financial tokenization; the policy address then transforms these directions into specific projects such as digital bonds, tokenized deposits, tokenized funds, gold and commodity warehouse receipt tokenization, licensed platform trading, CBDC settlement, and digital asset monitoring systems.

It can be seen that what Hong Kong is promoting is not a Web3 centered on anonymous trading, unlicensed finance, or speculative tokens, but a digital asset system that is deeply integrated with traditional financial markets, serves real assets and the real economy, and can be regulated and audited. Whether Hong Kong can truly form an international digital asset hub in the future will crucially depend on the scale of stablecoin applications, the liquidity of tokenized assets, and the ability to maintain a balance between regulatory requirements and market innovation.

Hong Kong Chief Executive's 2026 Policy Address: https://www.policyaddress.gov.hk/2026/public/pdf/policy/policy-full_tc.pdf

"First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (2026—2030)": https://www.hk5yplan.gov.hk/2026-2030/public/pdf/plan/FullText_tc.pdf