The Hong Kong Monetary Authority will announce the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses at 5 p.m. today.

36 applications, only 2–3 licenses issued, and even after the initial review, strict control of issuance volume remains. This indicates that the screening criteria are not about whether one can do it, but whether one can back it up.
Once stablecoins are incorporated into the regulatory system, they face not only on-chain liquidity issues but also trust pressures in the real world. If they lose their peg or experience a bank run, who bears the responsibility, and what assets are used to support them? That is the core issue.
From this perspective, this round of licensing is not about screening technical ability but about screening financial attributes.
In the past, issuing stablecoins was more like a combination of technology and asset custody. Hong Kong’s move is to explicitly define them as financial liabilities with monetary properties. Once this definition is established, the issuer is no longer a participant in open competition but must be embedded within the existing financial system.
The more critical change is that stablecoins are shifting from on-chain tools to capital interfaces.
Previously, they addressed transaction efficiency, but now regulators are genuinely concerned about whether they can enter larger capital flow scenarios such as cross-border payments and trade settlements. If this step is successful, the significance of stablecoins will no longer be just crypto infrastructure but will become a channel connecting on-chain and real-world finance.
Therefore, this licensing process is about building a standard entry point, where who can participate, how to participate, and what responsibilities they must assume will be defined in this round.
#香港稳定币 #Stablecoin regulation