Hong Kong's stablecoin license has been implemented; the ones truly affected are not altcoins, but the payment systems.

Hong Kong’s stablecoin development has finally moved from “market rumors” and “concept expectations” to the stage of actual licensing. On April 10, 2026, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority officially issued the first stablecoin licenses to Anchorpoint Financial and HSBC; earlier, the Hong Kong “Stablecoin Regulations” had already come into effect on August 1, 2025. This means Hong Kong is no longer just discussing stablecoins but has entered a new phase of “licensed issuance, licensed promotion, and licensed implementation.”

Many people’s first reaction to this news is: Is there going to be another round of hype around “stablecoin concept coins” and “Hong Kong concept shanzhai coins”? But I believe what is truly being impacted this time is not the shanzhai coin market but the traditional payment system itself. Because after the licenses are issued, stablecoins will no longer appear solely as “arbitrage tools on exchanges” or “on-chain dollar substitutes,” but will be explicitly promoted by licensed financial institutions in Hong Kong into real financial scenarios such as cross-border payments, local payments, merchant collections, and even tokenized asset subscriptions.

The two licensees in this first batch very clearly illustrate the point. HSBC is not a crypto-native institution but one of Hong Kong’s core traditional financial institutions; Anchorpoint is not just a Web3 startup but a joint venture platform driven by Standard Chartered Hong Kong, HKT, and Animoca Brands. Hong Kong granting licenses to such a combination sends a very clear signal: what they want is not just “issuing coins first,” but to have stronger entities holding the core capabilities of monetary credit, clearing, distribution channels, and compliance.

More importantly, this is not just a license for serving crypto trading. Reuters reported that the first licensed institutions are expected to launch stablecoins in the second half of 2026, covering cross-border and local use cases, including digital asset trading. HSBC’s own statement is more direct: it plans to integrate the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin into PayMe and HSBC HK App, with initial scenarios including P2P transfers, P2M merchant payments, and tokenized investment subscriptions. When a stablecoin is not just listed on exchanges but also stored in wallets, bank apps, and used for merchant payments, it challenges not just the liquidity of certain shanzhai coins but the payment gateways traditionally monopolized by bank cards, e-wallets, and bank transfer networks.

So why do I say the real impact is on the payment system? Because the core of the payment system has never been “whether money can move,” but rather “who can define settlement times, fee structures, reachability, and account boundaries.” The advantage of traditional payments is strong regulation, strong credit, and extensive merchant networks; but its problems are also obvious: slow cross-border transfers, layered structures, limited by holidays and business hours, long chains, and not friendly to small, high-frequency global payments. Once stablecoins are integrated by licensed banks and large financial institutions, they inherently possess advantages such as 24/7 transferability, on-chain programmability, and direct connection to tokenized assets. In other words, stablecoins may not immediately overthrow the “speculative market,” but they are very likely to reshape the path of “how money flows.”

This is also why Hong Kong is conducting such detailed approval processes. According to the institutional arrangements passed and implemented in 2025, licensed issuers must meet requirements in reserve asset management, redemption, customer asset segregation, anti-money laundering, auditing, and risk management; and stablecoin holders should be able to redeem at face value under reasonable conditions. Hong Kong is doing something very pragmatic: it wants to seize the next-generation financial infrastructure opportunities brought by digital currencies and Web3, but it also does not want stablecoins to become a new “high leverage, low transparency, weak risk control” gray channel.

The previous announcement was that licenses would be issued “by March,” which was delayed, but Hong Kong did not break its promise. It is just using a slower pace to build a stronger institutional credibility. Because the HKMA later disclosed that they received a total of 36 applications before the deadline for the first batch, but only approved two. This number itself shows that Hong Kong’s goal is not “quantity” but “stability”; not to create hype first, but to establish a replicable, regulated, and externally exportable model.

Looking further ahead, what does this mean for the market? I believe there are three levels of impact.

The first is that the logic of stablecoin competition will change. Previously, discussions about stablecoins mostly focused on on-chain dollar tools like USDT and USDC; in the future, Hong Kong’s story will not be “adding another stablecoin,” but “who can embed stablecoins into real payments and financial services.” Once distribution channels extend from exchanges to bank apps, payment wallets, merchant networks, and tokenized asset platforms, the competition dimension shifts from simple on-chain liquidity to licenses, credit, scenarios, and channels. This change will impact traditional payment institutions and banks far more than most shanzhai coins.

The second is that cross-border payments will be re-priced. Hong Kong has always been an important node for trade, finance, and cross-border capital flows. If licensed Hong Kong dollar stablecoins truly operate in cross-border payments, trade settlement, fund aggregation, and tokenized asset settlement, then the most expensive, slowest, and least transparent segments of traditional cross-border payments will be re-evaluated by the market. Stablecoins may not instantly replace SWIFT, bank card networks, or e-wallets overnight, but they will force these systems to answer a key question: when users can access faster, more direct, and programmable value transfer tools, why should the old systems continue to charge the same fees and offer the same speeds? This is the real pressure faced by the payment system.

The third is that Hong Kong is not just fighting for a coin but for rule-making authority. From the 2024 stablecoin sandbox, to the 2025 Stablecoin Regulations coming into effect, and the 2026 first licensing batch, Hong Kong is following a very typical “pilot first, legislation second, licensing third” path. It aims to demonstrate that in Asia, stablecoins can be brought into the formal financial system through a combination of banking, payments, Web3, and regulation. Whoever runs this model successfully first will have a better chance of gaining influence over the next round of digital financial infrastructure.

Of course, in the short term, the market will likely see many emotional trades around “Hong Kong stablecoin concepts,” which is normal. The issuance of stablecoin licenses is not about adding hype to shanzhai coins but about rewriting the boundaries of the payment system. The value of Hong Kong’s move lies not in creating another hype concept but in connecting the “on-chain monetary form” with the “offline financial gateways” for the first time. True change often does not happen first in candlestick charts but in clearing, payments, and account systems.