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Anchorpoint Financial Technology, a joint venture backed by Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), HKT and Animoca Brands, will launch a regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin called HKDAP (HKD At Par) in the second quarter of 2026 after securing a stablecoin issuer licence from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). The licence, granted under Hong Kong\u2019s Stablecoins Ordinance that took effect on August 1, 2025, makes Anchorpoint one of the city\u2019s first authorised issuers of fiat\u2011referenced stablecoins alongside HSBC and clears the way for a phased rollout of HKDAP for institutional and eventually retail use.<\/p>\n
In its licence announcement, Anchorpoint said it \u201ctargets to issue the regulated Hong Kong Dollar\u2011backed stablecoins \u2013 HKDAP (i.e. HKD At Par) with a phased approach from the second quarter of this year,\u201d positioning the token as \u201ca secure, accessible, and transparent digital currency\u201d for digital markets. According to the HKMA and company statements, each HKDAP token will be backed 1:1 by high\u2011quality, highly liquid Hong Kong dollar reserves held in segregated accounts, in line with Hong Kong\u2019s rules for HKD\u2011referenced stablecoins.<\/p>\n
Animoca Brands\u2019 group president Evan Auyang has framed a regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin as core financial infrastructure rather than a speculative play. In comments cited by Chinese outlet National Business Daily, he said \u201cstablecoins are the bridge between native and enterprise Web3\u201d and argued that \u201cmainland assets going global need a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin,\u201d calling such a coin \u201ccrucial for Hong Kong\u2019s financial infrastructure\u201d and key to supporting \u201cgames, trade, and 24\/7 financial settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hong Kong\u2019s Stablecoins Ordinance is one of the most prescriptive frameworks globally, requiring full 1:1 reserve backing, segregated assets, strict liquidity criteria and ongoing disclosure for any fiat\u2011referenced tokens offered to the public. The HKMA initially aimed to approve the first HKD\u2011referenced licences by March 2026 but slipped to April, when it authorised Anchorpoint and HSBC in what officials described as a step toward \u201ca secure tokenised medium of exchange for the digital economy and to facilitate international payments and capital flows,\u201d while avoiding the opacity that has plagued parts of the global stablecoin market as total supply has climbed above $300 billion.<\/p>\n
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The HKDAP launch comes as regional hubs race to anchor regulated stablecoin activity and tokenised money flows, with Singapore running pilots and the European Union bringing MiCA\u2011style rules for fiat\u2011backed tokens into force, trends previously examined in a crypto.news story on stablecoin market growth. In Europe, the European Central Bank has now \u201cfully\u201d backed a European Commission plan to shift supervision of systemically important crypto\u2011asset service providers and key trading venues from national authorities to the Paris\u2011based European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), calling the move \u201can ambitious step towards deeper integration of capital markets and financial market supervision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citing a Reuters report on its opinion, the ECB said \u201cdirect supervision by ESMA of certain market players is warranted to address risks stemming from their cross\u2011border activities,\u201d arguing that the current patchwork of 27 national regimes is \u201cinsufficient\u201d for integrated markets. At the same time, the central bank warned that ESMA will need \u201cmore staff and resources\u201d to police large crypto firms across the bloc, and that the proposed law \u2014 seen as the biggest structural change since MiCA took effect at the end of 2024 \u2014 could take months of negotiation among EU governments and lawmakers, as detailed in a recent crypto.news story on ESMA\u2019s expanding remit.<\/p>\n
Together, Hong Kong\u2019s HKDAP regime and Europe\u2019s ESMA push point in the same direction: regulators are dragging stablecoins and systemic crypto platforms into bank\u2011grade, centrally supervised frameworks rather than letting them sit on the industry\u2019s fringes.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summary Animoca\u2011backed Anchorpoint wins one of Hong Kong\u2019s first stablecoin licences to issue HKDAP. HKDAP will roll out from Q2 2026 under Hong Kong\u2019s stringent Stablecoins Ordinance. In Europe, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25764,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25763\/revisions\/25764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}