Good morning, Asia. Know here what news is being made in the markets:
Welcome to the Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of the top stories and an overview of market action and analysis during US time. For a detailed overview of US markets, check out CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
Six years after China’s ECNY debut, Hong Kong’s Fintech Week showed how the digital money narrative has shifted to stablecoins, as Brazil’s Drex Pivot (the country’s own CBDC project) highlighted the low momentum for central bank projects.
Once billed as the future of sovereign money, central bank digital currencies are slipping from the scene as market-driven stablecoins take center stage. At this year’s Hong Kong Fintech Week, banks, fintechs and regulators focused on tokenized deposits and HKD-backed stablecoins rather than state-issued digital cash.
The shift marks a turning point in global digital currency experimentation: central banks are slowing their retail ambitions, Brazil’s Drex halving being a clear example, while private issuers build the infrastructure that CBDCs were meant to deliver.
It could be argued that CBDCs were never born out of pure innovation but out of fear. When Facebook unveiled its Libra project in 2019, proposing a global digital currency backed by a basket of sovereign assets targeting a user base of 1.7 billion people, central banks were nervous at the prospect of a private company controlling the world’s payments rails.
The collapse of Libra years later left those same central banks racing to create digital currencies with no clear purpose. What started as a defensive move to protect monetary sovereignty has become a slow, bureaucratic experiment, with a faster, more adaptable stablecoin market already obsolete.
According to the Atlantic Council, 137 countries and currency unions, covering almost the entire global GDP, have some form of CBDC effort. Yet despite years of promotion, only three have managed to launch it: the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar, Jamaica’s Jam-Dex, and Nigeria’s eNaira – not the world’s largest economies.
Others are bogged down in committees, pilot programs, and technical studies, unsure whether the public will want what they are creating.
While central banks are still debating design documents, the private sector is already creating the future of money.
“Almost all transactions will eventually be settled on the blockchain, and all money will be digital,” Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered, said at Fintech Week.
And what did he mention next?
Stablecoins.
market movements
BTC: Bitcoin Trading around $105,930, little changed in 24 hours, as the market consolidates after recent volatility and profit-taking from leveraged traders.
ETH: Ethereum Trading near $3,578, slipping slightly as traders are moving into Bitcoin and reducing leveraged DeFi positions, although network activity and stake demand continue to hold support around current levels.
Sleep: Gold rose more than 2% to about $4,085 an ounce as soft US economic data and an agreement to end the government shutdown boosted expectations of a December Fed rate cut, which revived safe-haven demand.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets led on Tuesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 rising nearly 1% as investors tracked a Wall Street rally fueled by new AI optimism and growing confidence that the US government shutdown will soon end.
Elsewhere in Crypto
- Winklevoss’s Gemini crypto exchange disappointed with losses (Bloomberg)
- Bank of England confirms plans for ‘temporary’ stablecoin holding limits (CoinDesk)