Standard Chartered To Apply For HK Stablecoin License In JV

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Standard Chartered has partnered up with Animoca Brands and HKT to apply for a license under Hong Kong’s new stablecoin regime.

Standard Chartered’s JV First To Apply For Hong Kong Stablecoin License

According to a press release from Animoca Brands, the company has come together with Standard Chartered’s Hong Kong branch and Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) to form a joint venture (JV): Anchorpoint Financial.

The aim of the JV is to “build a business model focused on the issuance and advancement of licensed stablecoins,” as per the press release. Hong Kong passed its stablecoin bill on August 1st.

The law, called the Stablecoin Ordinance, made it so that any entity looking to issue fiat-based tokens in the city must procure a license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

Anchorpoint has already indicated interest with the regulator in applying for a stablecoin issuer license. Group president of Animoca Brands, Evan Auyang, said:

Animoca Brands is proud to partner with Standard Chartered and HKT to form Anchorpoint in applying for a stablecoin issuer license under the HKMA, with a view to bringing stablecoins into the mainstream financial ecosystem in Hong Kong. Stablecoins represent one of the most compelling use cases within Web3, and we believe we are still at the early frontier of widespread adoption across institutions and retail alike.

Animoca Brands is a Hong Kong-based Web3 firm with investments in blockchain gaming and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Meanwhile, HKT is one of the dominant telecommunication companies in the region.

Standard Chartered is a major bank based in the UK that has previously ventured into digital assets. Just last month, it became the first global systematically important bank (G-SIB) to offer a spot trading desk for Bitcoin and Ethereum to institutions.

G-SIBs are entities classified by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) as being so embedded in the global financial system that instability related to them could have wide-reaching disruptions. As such, it’s always particularly significant when banks like these dip their toes in the cryptocurrency sector.

While Standard Chartered’s JV has initiated the process of obtaining a license from the HKMA, it’s unlikely to become a stablecoin issuer anytime soon. According to a recent report, the first batch of licenses may not come until 2026. Even then, only a handful of applicants are expected to make the cut during this initial batch.

Bitcoin Price

Bitcoin recovered above the $117,000 mark on Thursday, but it appears the coin is looking to end the week with another retrace as its price is back at $115,900.

The trend in the price of the coin over the last five days | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView

The small hands in the sector appear to have aggressively been buying during the recent Bitcoin downturn, as analytics firm Glassnode has pointed out in an X post.

The data for the monthly balance change in the wallets of the small cohorts | Source: Glassnode on X

From the chart, it’s visible that Bitcoin shrimps, crabs, and fish have seen their monthly balance surpass the miner issuance recently, indicating that the small investors alone have been buying more than the miners can produce.

Featured image from Dall-E, Glassnode.com, chart from TradingView.com

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