Original author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News
On both sides of the Pacific, a narrative about the future of stablecoins is unfolding in completely different forms.
On the other hand, there is the prudent layout of industry giants. The recent craze for stablecoins in the mainland has also continued to rise. Pan Gongsheng, governor of the Peoples Bank of China, mentioned stablecoins for the first time at the 2025 Lujiazui Forum, saying that emerging technologies such as blockchain and distributed ledgers have promoted the vigorous development of central bank digital currencies and stablecoins, realizing payment and settlement, reshaping the traditional payment system from the bottom up, and greatly shortening the cross-border payment chain. At the same time, it has also posed huge challenges to financial supervision. In Hong Kong, China, the Stablecoin Act has been confirmed to take effect on August 1. On the eve of Hong Kongs licensing, many banking institutions, technology giants, and financial technology companies are also accelerating their efforts to seize the crypto market, and have repeatedly expressed their plans to apply for stablecoin licenses:
On June 12, Ant Groups two subsidiaries, Ant International and Ant Digits, announced the launch of stablecoin license applications. Subsequently, relevant sources said that LianLian Digital is also actively exploring the possibility of applying for relevant licenses in the above-mentioned regions. LianLian Digital has currently established a dedicated team to promote stablecoin-related projects and conduct use case research.
On June 16, Yuta Logistics Technology announced that it is actively studying the relevant regulatory details and plans to apply for a stablecoin issuance license after the Hong Kong Stablecoin Ordinance comes into effect. The company plans to launch its own stablecoin RHKD. The company also plans to issue a digital token RBTC that is linked to Bitcoin as the underlying asset. Customers can use Hong Kong dollars or US dollars to exchange RBTC. The company expects that the token will be 100% backed by Bitcoin as a reserve (realizing a 1:1 Bitcoin exchange).
On June 17, Liu Qiangdong, chairman of the board of directors of JD.com Group, said that JD.com hopes to apply for stablecoin licenses in all major currency countries around the world, and then use the stablecoin licenses to realize exchange between global companies, reducing global cross-border payment costs by 90% and increasing efficiency to within 10 seconds. At the same time, JD.com expects to obtain a license in the early fourth quarter of this year and launch the JD.com stablecoin at the same time.
On June 18, the A-share listed company Small Commodity City said, The company operates the worlds largest small commodity trading market, and naturally has massive and high-frequency cross-border trade settlement scenarios. Innovative payment tools such as stablecoins have the potential to provide more efficient and low-cost cross-border payment solutions for global merchants, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, which is in line with our purpose of serving physical trade. We welcome and support Hong Kongs positive progress in the stablecoin regulatory framework. The companys cross-border payment platform Yiwu Pay will continue to pay attention to the relevant regulatory process, and will actively evaluate and submit relevant applications as soon as possible after the regulations are clear and the path is smooth.
According to a report by Delphi Digital, the supply of stablecoins exceeded $250 billion for the first time. Among them, yield-based stablecoins have grown rapidly, with Ethena reaching nearly $6 billion since its launch; Tether and Circle still dominate the market, accounting for a total of 86% of the circulating supply; the diversity of issuers has increased, with more than 10 stablecoins in circulation exceeding $100 million; more than $120 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds are locked in stablecoins, forming a liquidity pool outside the traditional market.
The above cases are not only the differences in strategic choices between the two regions, but also reflect the two parallel development models in the global stablecoin track. A core question emerges from this: Is it the grand narrative driven by legislation or the scene penetration driven by industry that will ultimately dominate this structural change related to the future digital financial infrastructure?
Two paths: top-down mainstream compliance and bottom-up industry penetration
The different development paths of stablecoins in the United States and Hong Kong are rooted in their different market environments and the strategic starting points of participants. Taking Circle and JD Coin Chain as examples, they represent a top-down, protracted battle to seek mainstream compliance, and a bottom-up, industry-driven B-side breakthrough.
The American path represented by the former is a mainstream conspiracy aimed at gaining the right to speak on the chain. As a Crypto Native, Circles long-term strategic goal has always been clear, that is, to get rid of the marginal label of the crypto world and enter the core of the traditional financial system. But this process is not a smooth road. Circle had been thinking about listing in the traditional financial market, but in 2022, the huge uncertainty in the market environment and supervision led to the failure of the SPAC merger plan. This major setback just proves that in the United States, without a clear policy framework, stablecoins will be difficult to be accepted by the mainstream. The fundamental turning point lies in the clarification of the US macroeconomic policy environment, especially driven by the crypto-friendly policy orientation and regulatory progress such as the GENIUS Act. Circle has obtained the right time and place, paving the way for its eventual entry into the capital market.
In sharp contrast, the Hong Kong path represented by the latter is a new breakthrough based on the B-end. JD Coin Chain Technology (Hong Kong) was registered in Hong Kong in March 2024. In July, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the list of participants in the Sandbox of stablecoin issuers, including JD Coin Chain. According to its official website, JD will issue a cryptocurrency stablecoin pegged to the Hong Kong dollar 1: 1 in Hong Kong. JD Stablecoin is a stablecoin based on a public chain and pegged to the Hong Kong dollar (HKD) 1: 1. It will be issued on a public blockchain. Its reserves are composed of highly liquid and credible assets. These assets are safely stored in independent accounts of licensed financial institutions. The integrity of the reserves is strictly verified through regular disclosures and audit reports. JD is not a newcomer in the payment field, but it has not been able to establish an independent payment ecosystem that can compete with Alibaba and Tencent in the last round of mobile payment wars around the C-end. Therefore, JDs entry into stablecoins is not a catch-up on the old battlefield, but a natural extension based on JD Groups advantages in technology and supply chain. It chose to avoid the C-end retail payment, which has become a red ocean, and directly entered the B-end cross-border trade and supply chain finance, where it has structural advantages. The logical starting point of this path is not to seek a comprehensive liberalization of top-level legislation, but to use the specific institutional space provided by Hong Kong as an international financial center and regulatory sandbox to solve specific business problems.
Two ways of playing: the new battlefield of B-side VS the on-chain currency track
Different starting points determine two completely different market strategies.
In a recent interview, Liu Peng, CEO of JD CoinChain Technology, said that as of early June 2025, the company has mainly tested the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, and will later test other fiat stablecoins. Based on market demand, it is expected that the two stablecoins will be issued at the same time. Unlike the first phase, which mainly tested product functions and technical details, the second phase focuses on testing the use of stablecoins in three practical scenarios: cross-border payments, investment transactions, and retail payments.
In the cross-border payment scenario, JD Coin Chain plans to expand its user base through both direct customer acquisition and indirect customer acquisition (such as cooperation with compliant wholesalers). In the investment and trading scenario, it is currently negotiating cooperation with global compliant exchanges to launch JD Stablecoin in different regions. In terms of retail, the first to be launched is JD Global Sales Hong Kong and Macau Station, where users can be the first to use stablecoins for shopping in JDs self-operated e-commerce scenarios.
JDs strategy can be seen as a surgical knife tactic, the core of which is to dig deep into the B-end and take the scene as the king. Liu Peng clearly pointed out that the target users of JDs stablecoin are not crypto investors, but a large number of physical enterprises and cross-border trade participants. Its core value proposition is not speculation, but to solve the long-term pain points of traditional cross-border payments through blockchain technology, such as high cost, low efficiency and opaque process. By tailoring payment solutions for JDs inherent ecology such as global sales and international logistics.
In contrast, Circles strategy is to seize the high ground of the protocol and make standards king. Its ultimate goal, as Bernstein analysts pointed out, is to evolve into the currency track of the Internet. This means that Circle is not pursuing to solve the problem of a specific scenario, but to become a universal, underlying digital cash protocol. By establishing its legal status through legislation, Circle hopes that USDC can be seamlessly integrated by all banks, payment companies, fintech platforms and commercial applications. This is a typical horizontal platform-based, protocol-driven logic that aims to maximize network effects by establishing basic standards, thereby occupying an indispensable core position in the global digital financial system.
The two approaches point to two different business outcomes.
JD.coms future vision is to build a highly closed-loop on-chain trade empire. By connecting stablecoin payments with its international logistics, overseas warehousing, order systems and other data flows, it is theoretically possible to achieve an unprecedented, efficient and transparent global supply chain financial ecosystem. But its more strategic vision points to offshore RMB stablecoins. With the institutional advantages of Hong Kong as the worlds largest offshore RMB hub, once policy permission is obtained, the issuance of CNH stablecoins will not only bring JD.com huge business imagination space, but also give it the opportunity to play a key role in financial infrastructure in the internationalization of RMB.
Circles endgame is closely tied to consolidating the dollars hegemony in the global digital economy. Its goal is to become the de facto private sector version of the digital dollar and a core component of the next-generation financial infrastructure. However, it is worth noting that while the market is frenzying, Cathie Woods Ark Invest has begun to choose to cash out when CRCLs stock price hits a new high. According to transaction disclosures, ARK sold a total of 642,766 Circle shares through its three core funds in two days, with a total value of approximately US$96.5 million, accounting for 14% of its initial position. At present, BlackRock, another major institutional shareholder, has not reported any reduction in holdings, while the reduction in holdings by Circles internal executive team is a regular plan after the IPO in accordance with the prospectus.
This does not completely deny Circles long-term value, but it at least suggests that in the eyes of the most optimistic investors, the stock price may have fully or even over-reflected the policy benefits in the short term, and it is necessary to manage risk exposure through tactical reduction. After the legislation is passed, the real business implementation and market competition challenges may have just begun.
Different paths, same destination? A currency war that will define the future
In general, JD.com and Circle represent two paradigms of stablecoin development. JD.com’s model is pragmatic, starting from solving specific business problems, and its advantages lie in its solid business foundation and clear application scenarios. Circle’s model is idealistic, starting from building a grand financial vision, and its advantages lie in its leading legislative support and strong capital endorsement.
Of course, there are still many problems to be solved: Can the B-side barriers built by the JD model with industry as the core effectively resist the top-down dimensionality reduction attack of general protocols such as Circle? And when Circles grand narrative really penetrates the real economy, must it also conquer specific industry application scenarios one by one like JD?
