Asia is quietly building a counterweight to the dollar stablecoin empire, and the West isn’t ready
The following is a guest post and opinion from Anurag Arjun, Founder of Avail.
The global stablecoin narrative is about to shift fast. What began as a US-dominated experiment in digital liquidity is morphing into a multipolar fight over who controls the rails of tomorrow’s monetary system. And the most consequential moves are unfolding in Asia—quietly, deliberately, and at increasing speed.
For a decade, dollar-backed tokens (such as USDT and USDC) have dominated the market. But 2025 is the year that the reign begins to crack. Behind closed doors in Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jakarta, a different plan is being built: stablecoins pegged to local currencies, issued under regulated frameworks, and designed for regional commerce, remittances, gaming, and ultimately, financial sovereignty.
If the West remains fixated on the next U.S. stablecoin bill, Asia is scrambling to build a stablecoin empire of its own.
Why 2025 is the Turning Point
Because the changes are concrete, regulatory, and structural—not speculative.
In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) passed a landmark Stablecoins Ordinance in May 2025. As of August 1, any entity issuing fiat-referenced stablecoins or marketing a stablecoin pegged to HKD must have a license from the HKMA, abide by reserve and redemption regulations, and undergo AML/auditing oversight. The licensing race has begun in earnest. Dozens of firms—from fintechs to banks to Web3 companies—are reported to be preparing applications, all vying to become early-licensed issuers. But the real inflection point is not just regulatory. It’s strategic.
Global firms are finally realizing they cannot build a worldwide business on USD-only rails without alienating major markets.
Exchanges, payment apps, Web3 gaming companies, and fintechs operating across Asia have started to understand the risk:
- A USD-only offering signals misalignment with local regulators.
- It caps user adoption in markets where domestic currencies dominate on-the-ground commerce.
- It creates dependency on U.S. regulatory and banking bottlenecks.
- It limits participation in Asia’s fast-emerging digital payment ecosystems.
Asia isn’t rejecting the dollar outright. It’s building alternatives—quietly and with increasing coordination.
What Asia Is Building Instead
Hong Kong is only the start.
South Korea is now in the advanced stages of developing a legal framework for won-pegged stablecoins, with regulators preparing legislation for submission by the end of 2025, and debates intensifying over the distinction between bank- and non-bank-issued stablecoins and their respective oversight. Major financial institutions and tech firms are already positioning ahead of formal rules.
Japan is embracing stablecoin innovation on both the institutional and private fronts: its largest banks are collaborating on stablecoin initiatives for corporate settlements, while private yen-pegged tokens such as JPYC operate under a clear regulatory framework and are gaining traction.
Singapore continues to support digital payment tokens and multi-currency stablecoin infrastructure under a calibrated, compliance-first framework that emphasizes risk controls and regulatory standards.
See, what’s emerging in Asia isn’t just a collection of local stablecoins. It’s the early formation of an alternative settlement layer—one that reduces reliance on U.S.-centric banking rails, correspondent networks, and dollar-clearing choke points. Digital trade corridors are the endgame.
This is where Western narratives begin to fall apart.
In the U.S., the debate remains stuck on how to regulate dollar-backed stablecoins domestically. In Asia, the question is already more advanced: how should digital currencies move between jurisdictions, under whose rules, and on whose terms?
That is not a crypto question.
It is a geopolitical one.
Meanwhile in Europe… A Late Awakening
Europe’s response adds another twist. In Europe, a consortium of major banks, including ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas, formed a company named Qivalis. The emergence of Qivalis (a euro-backed, bank-controlled stablecoin set for 2026) is being spun as a response to U.S. dominance.
Wrong.
It’s a response to Asian acceleration.
Europe doesn’t want a future where the two major non-EU digital currencies are:
- USD stablecoins, and
- Asia’s new wave of regulated FX stablecoins.
For the first time, Europe is being pulled into a currency-rail arms race it did not expect to fight.
These developments show that stablecoins are no longer niche digital assets. They are being woven into the future fabric of regulated, sovereign, or supra-sovereign money systems.
Stablecoins Are Becoming State-Adjacent
New research focus and hybrid monetary systems—combining CBDCs + stablecoins—signal where this is all going:
Stablecoins are becoming state-adjacent. Not anti-state. Not post-state.
But parallel-state financial tools.
And this is where the questions get uncomfortable:
- What happens when a KRW or JPY stablecoin becomes more trusted in Southeast Asia than local fiat?
- What happens when a Singapore-approved multi-currency stablecoin becomes the de facto settlement asset for APAC regional trade?
- What happens when Western regulators realize they’ve lost the narrative they thought they controlled?
- What does “dollar dominance” mean when the world’s liquidity moves through programmable, multi-currency rails that no single country controls?
- What happens when USD stablecoins become just one option—not the default?
These are not hypothetical questions anymore.
They are emerging realities, forming in slow motion, while geopolitical institutions pretend this is still “crypto.”
The Shift Is Already Underway
Asia isn’t racing to build stablecoins. Asia is racing to build strategic monetary optionality.
And the West is still arguing over definitions.
That distinction matters.
The future of stablecoins will not be won by the loudest protocol or the largest issuer, but by the jurisdictions that design credible, regulated, interoperable currency rails first. In that race, Asia is already several steps ahead.
And by the time the shift becomes obvious, the rules of digital money may have already been rewritten with a logic that America did not write.
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