If the first batch of stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong is really only issued to banks, we might miss out on the next decade

Recently, news about the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's upcoming announcement of the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses has sparked significant attention both within and outside the industry. According to authoritative media and rumors within the industry, due to extreme care for financial stability and conservative risk considerations, it is highly likely that the first batch of stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong will only be granted to traditional note-issuing banks or large commercial banks.

To be honest, upon hearing this news, I and several veterans in the industry felt a bit anxious. Hong Kong has clearly set out to build a "global digital asset center," polishing the table, but at this critical juncture for stablecoins, which can truly reshape the underlying logic of future finance, if it ultimately decides to only allow "old money" from the traditional system to participate... then what we miss out on may not just be the prospects of a few local fintech companies, but the greatest payment innovation opportunity in the Web3 and AI era.

I've been thinking these days, why is it unsettling to hand over the most important financial innovation to traditional banks to lead?

If we break it down and look at the business reality, the answer is quite clear.

Disruptive things rarely grow from the center

Looking back at the financial history of the past few decades, the innovations that truly changed the game have basically not emerged from bank buildings. Whether it was PayPal back in the day, or later Alipay and WeChat Pay that disrupted daily transactions, or even cryptocurrencies themselves, it is often small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurs from the margins that create significant impacts.

This is not to say that traditional banks are doing poorly. The foundation of large banks is to act as "credit intermediaries," and they are inherently averse to risk, pursuing extreme stability. This is their DNA and the basis for maintaining the operation of the financial system.

But stablecoins are an entirely different species. They are a new type of currency carrier that is borderless, programmable, and decentralized, essentially a dimensional reconstruction of traditional banking services. Can we expect a note-issuing bank that is used to following procedures and burdened with a massive compliance load to lead a Web3 payment revolution that is likely to disrupt their own existing interests? This does not make sense in business logic. It is asking too much.

Look at who is sitting at the table across the ocean

If you think history is too distant, we can look at the current global market. The ones truly pushing stablecoins towards a trillion-dollar scale are not JPMorgan or Citibank, but rather technology companies with strong technical genes.

Take Stripe in the U.S., this payment giant valued at over a hundred billion dollars has just made a significant acquisition of the stablecoin platform Bridge. I carefully read what Stripe co-founder John Collison wrote in their 2025 open letter; he didn't talk about grand concepts but very practically stated that stablecoins represent "an improvement in the basic usability of currency," and are the most innovative area in the internet economy. They are genuinely using code and stablecoins to reconstruct the global payment foundation.

Then look at Circle, which issues USDC; they have long been dissatisfied with just being a coin issuance institution. Their current financial reports and actions are very clear: they are integrating large models to create a foundational network for future AI Agents.

The current strategy in the U.S. is already clear: use innovative tech companies combined with stablecoins to fight the next financial technology battle. If Hong Kong at this time hands over the keys to the most important arsenal only to traditional banks that are used to defense, what will our local Web3 companies use to compete on the same stage?

In the AI era, banks' systems cannot handle machine bills

The SAR government is currently putting significant effort into promoting "AI+" and the digital economy, which is the right direction. But often, people haven't fully thought through the underlying ledger: what does payment look like in the AI era?

I estimate that in two to three years, the main entities in commercial transactions will not only be living people like you and me or companies, but countless AI Agents running in the cloud.

Imagine at three in the morning, your personal AI assistant, to help you complete a complex video rendering model, goes online to find the cheapest idle computing power and initiates API calls across countries at a rate of dozens per second. Can the current fiat currency system handle such high-frequency, instantaneous, possibly just a few cents per transaction, cross-border microtransactions? Traditional bank transfer fees are frighteningly high, and you have to wait for T+1 or T+2 settlements, with system maintenance on weekends.

Only stablecoins running on the blockchain can support this kind of all-weather, low-friction machine-to-machine trading. They can be directly written into smart contracts, allowing AI to have wallets and spend money autonomously. Without this foundation, the so-called AI agent economy cannot operate.

Surely someone will ask, can't large banks just issue a stablecoin for AI to use?

No, they really can't. This touches on the compliance deadlock at the core of the banking industry. Banks' KYC (Know Your Customer) and anti-money laundering systems are designed for "natural persons" and "legal entities." To open an account, you need to provide identification, proof of address, and board resolutions. When an AI Agent, which is just a string of code, wants to spend money to buy computing power without a physical account, the bank's compliance system will immediately throw an error. How can the system perform facial recognition for code?

Under the existing regulatory inertia, the only reasonable response from the banking system is: we don't understand this thing, the risk is too high, and we refuse to provide service.

The underlying systems of the large mainframe era cannot accommodate new plays on the blockchain. To solve this generational pain point, we can only rely on independent issuers who understand the Web3 architecture and are driven by technology. They know how to flexibly use on-chain data and new digital identity technologies to minimize friction in machine payments within a compliant framework.

Hong Kong desperately needs "fresh troops"

I truly understand the regulators' caution in the initial licensing phase. In the context of traditional finance, granting licenses first to powerful large banks is the safest and least error-prone defensive move. But at this critical juncture of a technological paradigm shift, excessive caution may instead evolve into the greatest risk—missing out on an entire era.

The vision of becoming a "global digital asset center" should not just mean allowing traditional banks to issue an "on-chain version of the Hong Kong dollar" as a formality. Hong Kong needs real Web3 entrepreneurs and ambitious tech companies to take root here and serve the global AI agent economy. Ecosystems are built through real competition, not through protective measures.

In this race, Hong Kong urgently needs a group of fresh troops who understand modern compliance logic and truly grasp technology; we cannot rely solely on gatekeepers limited by existing systems.

I sincerely hope that regulatory agencies can show greater courage and leave a door open for independent innovative companies with technical genes. Because what is at stake is not just the distribution of a few licenses, but whether Hong Kong will be at the forefront sailing smoothly or regrettably standing on the shore sighing in the next decade of the digital economy.

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