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Hong Kong Monetary Authority Issues Discussion Paper on Crypto Assets and Stablecoins

"We look forward to hearing the feedback from stakeholders and will draw up a risk-based, pragmatic and agile regulatory regime," HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue said.

Updated May 11, 2023, 4:39 p.m. Published Jan 12, 2022, 12:40 p.m.

Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city's de-facto central bank under China's "one country, two systems" administration policy. (CoinDesk archives)

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) released on Wednesday a "Discussion Paper" in which it lays out its thinking on the regulatory approach for crypto assets, particularly payment-related stablecoins.

"The approach has taken into account, among other things, the international recommendations, the market and regulatory landscape locally and in other major jurisdictions, and the characteristics of payment-related stablecoins," the announcement says. To facilitate the stakeholders in sharing their views, the HKMA has highlighted certain issues in the form of questions and answers in the paper.
"The rapid development of crypto-assets, particularly stablecoins, is a topic of keen attention in the international regulatory community as it presents possible risks regarding monetary and financial stability," said HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue in the statement. "We look forward to hearing the feedback from stakeholders and will draw up a risk-based, pragmatic and agile regulatory regime on this front."
The paper is available on the HKMA website. Members of the public and the industry are welcome to submit their responses by email to stablecoin_feedback@hkma.gov.hk on or before March 31, 2022.

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Greg Ahlstrand

Originally from California, I've been Asia-based since 1999, headquartered in Hong Kong and Jakarta and traveling throughout the Asean countries, Japan, Korea, the Chinese mainland and Taiwan for stories. Made Australia a couple of times, too.

I started my journalism career as a news assistant at the Fresno Bee in Central California while studying the subject in school after the Navy. I went from launching and recovering helicopters on flight decks at sea to recovering papers fresh off the printer in the Bee's basement and launching them onto the editors' desks, whose editors had long since gone home for the night. Eventually, they let me stop delivering the paper and start writing stuff in it. My first beat was night cops: liquor store robberies, gang shootings, fatal car crashes (almost always alcohol related). It was an education.

I am, as implied above, a U.S. Navy veteran. I served in seagoing helicopter squadrons as an aviation anti-submarine warfare technician throughout the Asia Pacific region and the Indian Ocean. I have a significant number of sailor stories to tell. I have no significant crypto holdings.

Among my hobbies are welding, building stuff, home remodelling, (or knocking a house down and starting from scratch if it's too far gone to fix), riding horses and rebuilding old tractors. So far I've done a Ford 8N and a Ford 9N. It's slow going, because I live in Hong Kong and the tractors are in California, so I only get to work on them once or twice a year, for a week or two at a time - and that was before covid.

I love my Lab, Cooper, whom my neighbors asked me to adopt two years ago when they moved back to Shanghai from Hong Kong. Cooper and I actually planned the whole thing -- we've known each other almost his whole life -- but his first parents are unaware of the conspiracy; and they send him Christmas presents every year.