Hong Kong’s stablecoin market is entering a more regulated phase, and Animoca Brands wants in through Anchorpoint. On the same morning as Fortune’s interview with Animoca president Evan Auyang, Anchorpoint — a joint venture between Standard Chartered, HKT, and Animoca — began the phased rollout of its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, with retail use potentially starting by the end of the year.
Auyang cast the project as infrastructure rather than speculation. 'We’re not trying to be the next Tether,' he said. 'We’re trying to be one that says: we want to be the regulated rails, be there first, to enable this region of Greater China and the capital markets here to be on-chain.'
That ambition now runs through a licensing regime that is far more restrictive than the freewheeling crypto boom that made Animoca a name in Web3. Hong Kong’s regime requires issuers to hold at least 25 million Hong Kong dollars ($3.2 million) in paid-up capital and to back every coin at all times with reserves of safe, easy-to-sell assets like bonds, held separately from the company’s own funds.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority cleared just two of 36 applicants in April: Anchorpoint and HSBC, the city’s largest bank. The structure may be deliberate. Animoca, Standard Chartered, and HKT announced Anchorpoint in February 2025, and the venture was among the first to apply after the city opened applications for its stablecoin licensing regime in August of that year.
Auyang argued that the appeal of a stablecoin comes from utility, not ideology. He said it can connect unbanked individuals — 1.3 billion globally, according to the World Bank — to the financial system. 'If you don’t have a purpose for it, if there’s no use for it, there’s no business model,' he said.
He also framed the product in plain financial terms. Banks, he said, do not tell people 'you are too expensive to be served. They just don’t serve you.' In his view, even 'somebody with 10 Hong Kong dollars [$1.30] ought to be able to invest.'
The move marks a notable turn for Animoca, a company that was once synonymous with crypto’s wild years. Founded in 2014, it became Web3’s most prolific investor, backed Sky Mavis, and owned The Sandbox, once pitched as the metaverse’s centerpiece. In mid-2022, Animoca was valued as high as $5.9 billion. By 2023, bookings had fallen by 30% from 2022.
Animoca is also looking beyond crypto into AI. In May, it launched 'Minds by Animoca Brands,' a service that lets non-technical users deploy persistent AI agents with identity, memory, and cognition. Auyang said the company is not chasing the biggest LLM winners, adding: 'It’s not going to be Animoca. We’re not that kind of company.'
The market has already voted for a different kind of crypto model: one with capital requirements, reserve rules, and established partners. That is what happens when the speculative phase gives way to regulation. The firms that can work with bureaucratic oversight get to build the rails; the rest are left selling promises.
