As governments race to modernize their financial infrastructure, blockchain is shifting from a private-sector experiment to a national priority.
From stablecoins to digital identity systems, countries across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are adopting tokenized assets at speed—driven in part by fears that U.S. regulatory shifts could leave them behind.
At the center of this push is Sign, led by co-founder and CEO Xin Yan. In an interview with crypto.news, he explains what’s driving this wave of adoption, from cutting costs to increasing transparency and reclaiming control over money flows.
- U.S. shift on crypto has caused a major change among global regulators
- Stablecoins are now a geopolitical weapon for the U.S.
- Governments getting involved means crypto adoption is much more likely
Crypto.news: Asset tokenization is becoming more popular, and we’re seeing increasing interest from governments across the world. How do they see this technology, and what’s driving their interest?
Xin Yan: There are roughly 190 governments in the world, and most of them think in bureaucratic terms. They don’t always understand new technologies deeply, but they care about national development and don’t want their countries left behind. So whenever something big appears — like AI or blockchain — they want to be involved.
In the past, many governments viewed blockchain negatively because it was seen as anti-establishment and decentralized, while government structures are hierarchical. There’s a fundamental ideological tension there. But things have changed a lot this year.
When the U.S. government, and even figures like Donald Trump, began showing openness toward crypto, it flipped the narrative. Governments are copycats by nature — if major powers adopt something, others follow. They don’t want to be left behind.
Beyond that, blockchain offers real practical advantages. It’s a much faster and more efficient global settlement system compared to legacy options like SWIFT. The old infrastructure is clunky, expensive, and slow. Blockchain-based settlement is cleaner, faster, and increasingly compliant as digital ID systems and automated KYC improve.
So, governments see the appeal: better payments, faster clearing, and more transparency.
Crypto.news: Right now, USD stablecoins dominate the global crypto economy. Are governments worried this will deepen dollarization and weaken their own currencies?
Yan: Yes — and they should be.
The traditional U.S. dollar payment system is already losing efficiency, but now there’s a new, even more powerful “weapon”: U.S. dollar–based stablecoins. For smaller nations, that’s a real threat.
Currency control is one of the few levers of national sovereignty. Many Southeast Asian countries learned the hard way, during the crises 20–25 years ago, that uncontrolled capital flows can destroy local economies. If U.S. liquidity floods in and out through stablecoins, those nations lose the ability to manage their monetary systems.
Cambodia is a good example. USDT use there is so common that the local currency has become almost irrelevant. Governments can’t simply ban stablecoins — they’re too pervasive — but they can respond strategically.
The best defense is to match the technology: launch your own stablecoin, peg it to your local currency, and create liquidity pairs with exchanges like Binance. That way, you can monitor data flows and retain control over domestic circulation.
That’s what we’re helping countries do. We’re working with Kyrgyzstan on their national stablecoin, and we just signed a deal with Sierra Leone for the same. In Abu Dhabi, there are already four active stablecoin projects, and we’re helping them with adoption and use cases.
CN: Aside from stablecoins, what other blockchain infrastructure are governments building or interested in?
Yan: The most important layer is the monetary system itself. Governments see blockchain as a superior settlement network — particularly between central banks and commercial banks.
In this structure, the central bank acts as the token issuer — the “controller” of the system — and the commercial banks become the equivalent of DeFi platforms, lending and managing liquidity. This is effectively what wholesale CBDC systems aim to do.
There’s skepticism about retail CBDCs, but for interbank settlement, blockchain is objectively better. Traditional systems like RTGS take a full day to clear transactions; blockchain can do it in seconds.
The second major pillar is cross-border payments. Combining stablecoins with blockchain-based settlements creates the next-generation global payment architecture.
The third is digital identity. You need reliable KYC and credential verification for money systems to work. Traditional digital ID systems — like those in Singapore, India, or China — centralize all data on a single server, which is constantly hacked.
The new approach, which we’re building for places like the UAE, Bhutan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, uses verifiable credentials. Instead of one central database, each credential issuer signs your identity data with its public key. Anyone can verify its authenticity cryptographically without accessing the central system. It’s a digital stamp, just like a paper seal, but for the internet.
Together, money and ID form the foundation. Once those are in place, countries can tokenize real-world assets — natural resources, gold, electricity, oil — and use them to raise capital.
Traditionally, nations export these resources for U.S. dollars. But if you tokenize them, you can raise capital directly from global investors without relying on U.S. markets. Instead of selling gold, you issue gold-backed tokens while keeping the gold in your own vaults. That’s a fundamental shift.
Crypto.news: Some worry about scalability — can blockchain handle national-level workloads?
Yan:: It’s not really an issue anymore. Modern chains like BNB Chain and Solana process blocks in under 200 milliseconds. That’s more than enough for a country’s transaction volume. Even if it becomes a problem, there are Layer-2 and modular solutions ready.
Crypto.news: You mentioned public services earlier — how does blockchain change how governments interact with citizens?
Yan: It transforms it completely. Once you have national digital IDs and wallets, the government can distribute funds — like subsidies or child benefits — directly on-chain.
Instead of dealing with multiple bank accounts and intermediaries, citizens can simply claim an airdrop linked to their verified ID. It’s instant and cheap. This direct interaction between the treasury and the citizens’ wallets will redefine public administration.
Crypto.news: And what does all this mean for the crypto ecosystem itself — traders, investors, the broader market?
Yan: It brings real people and real money into the crypto economy. Right now, crypto is liquid but small — too few users, too little real utility. Governments adopting blockchain infrastructure will onboard millions who’ve never used crypto before.
When people start receiving pensions or salaries through wallets, they’re automatically part of the crypto world. Once that happens, crypto stops being a niche — it becomes embedded in daily life, in voting, payments, and services.
From there, tokenization will explode. If a country like Abu Dhabi tokenizes even 5% of its oil, that becomes one of the largest assets in the crypto market overnight. Real-world value will finally be back on-chain liquidity.
Crypto.news: Is there anything people are overlooking in this shift?
Yan: Yes, the extent to which blockchain will replace legacy systems, not just complement them. SWIFT, for example, recently announced it’s building a “blockchain version” of its network. But that misses the point. The goal of crypto is to bypass SWIFT entirely, not upgrade it.
With stablecoins, cross-border payments can now go directly from USD to USDT, convert to another nation’s stablecoin, and settle instantly in a local bank account or wallet—no intermediaries, no delays, and at a fraction of the cost.
That’s what’s really transformative — it’s not theoretical anymore. It’s happening now, and governments are starting to realize this is the new infrastructure for global finance.
