Animoca Brands, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd., and HKT have formed a joint venture called Anchorpoint Financial Ltd.

They aim to pursue a stablecoin issuer license in Hong Kong.

On August 1, 2025, the day the Stablecoins Ordinance came into effect, Anchorpoint showed formal interest to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to apply for the license.

Since July 2024, the companies have been participating in the HKMA’s stablecoin issuer sandbox to explore stablecoin-related opportunities.

Animoca Brands focuses on blockchain, tokenization, and Web3 initiatives. This move supports Hong Kong’s efforts to regulate stablecoins and grow its digital assets sector.

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🔗 Source: Animoca Brands

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Global stablecoin regulation reaches critical mass in 2025

Hong Kong’s licensing framework launch represents part of a coordinated global regulatory push happening this year across major financial jurisdictions.

The US passed the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025, requiring stablecoin issuers to maintain 1:1 reserves in low-risk assets like Treasury bills 1. Hong Kong’s Stablecoins Ordinance took effect August 1, 2025, with similar reserve backing requirements 2. The EU’s Markets in Crypto-assets Regulation (MiCA) is already the most advanced framework globally, emphasizing consumer protection and requiring issuer authorization 3.

This regulatory convergence addresses the explosive growth in stablecoin usage, which has increased 28% year-over-year and now surpasses transaction volumes of major credit card companies 1.

The simultaneous implementation across these jurisdictions suggests coordinated effort to establish consistent global standards, likely reducing regulatory arbitrage opportunities that previously existed in the stablecoin market.

2️⃣ Strategic infrastructure partnerships signal stablecoin complexity beyond finance

Anchorpoint’s three-way partnership structure reveals how stablecoin infrastructure requires expertise spanning traditional banking, blockchain technology, and telecommunications networks.

Standard Chartered brings traditional banking compliance and reserve management capabilities, Animoca Brands contributes Web3 ecosystem knowledge from operating blockchain projects like The Sandbox, and HKT provides the telecommunications infrastructure critical for payment processing 4.

This partnership composition reflects the multi-layered technical and regulatory challenges of stablecoin issuance that extend far beyond simple cryptocurrency creation.

The collaboration aligns with Hong Kong’s broader strategy to position itself as a bridge between traditional finance and digital assets, with the territory raising $1.5 billion in digital asset investments in July 2025 alone 4.

The joint venture structure suggests that successful stablecoin operations increasingly require deep expertise across multiple domains rather than relying solely on financial or technology capabilities.

Recent Animoca Brands developments

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