China Tightens Crypto Ban; Hong Kong To Still Proceed With Its Plan

• Hong Kong’s central bank is moving forward with plans to issue an initial batch of stablecoin licences in March, regardless of China’s prolonged opposition to crypto activity. 
• The CEO of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority mentioned that we anticipate that by March we will be capable of making a decision. 

The recent policy adjustment of China seems more like a crackdown instead of a structural reordering. As reported by Bloomberg, it has tightened the cryptocurrency activity once again. 

On Friday, 8 Chinese authorities headed by the central bank issued a joint notice on risks associated with the digital assets. It restates that the crypto-associated businesses stay illegal financial activities. 

It also expands the investigation to offshore offerers and to overseas conduct by domestic actors. The structure of the document has equal weightage as of its tone, and it reiterates the ban. Specifically, the notice bans anybody from issuing renminbi-pegged stablecoins abroad. 

However, it serves tokenisation of real-world assets as a clear tool of governance, and domestic activity is still constrained. Still, a special case is noted in the rulebook: cases approved by competent authorities and run via designated financial market infrastructure. 

To impose these laws, the central government has planned to roll out a collaborative effort amalgamating local and national oversight. The collaborative effort has targeted removing regulatory arbitrage so far used by Chinese tech and finance companies. 

These firms mostly used neighbouring jurisdictions to test with blockchain-based assets outside Beijing’s direct oversight. By tightening the tether on stablecoins as well as RWAs, Beijing has indicated that the upcoming generation of digital finance must stay completely within state-sanctioned, permissioned systems. 

The Robust Move Being Unaffected 

However, Hong Kong’s central bank is moving forward with plans to issue an initial batch of stablecoin licences in March, regardless of China’s prolonged opposition to crypto activity. Although, analysts state that the stablecoin plans of Hong Kong are more of a hedge than a reversal of position of Beijing. 

The Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Eddie Yue, stated at a Legislative Council meeting on February 2 that we anticipate that by March we will be capable of making a decision. 

He further added that the authority was reviewing an initial portion of 36 stablecoin issuer applications, as per the official interpreter. 

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