Hong Kong to enable trading of regulated stablecoins, tokenized fund settlement

Hong Kong plans to allow regulated stablecoins to be traded on licensed virtual asset trading platforms and used to settle tokenized money market funds, Chief Executive John Lee announced in his policy address. Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission plans to refine its licensing regime for virtual asset service providers and improve the regulatory framework for issuing and trading tokenized products tied to real-world assets such as gold. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is also set to introduce central bank digital currency settlement functions and 24-hour operations to Project EnsembleTX by the end of this year, while further expanding use cases for deposit tokens.