Singapore and Hong Kong continue to lead regulatory developments across Asia this year, focusing on overseeing crypto exchanges, stablecoins, and real-world asset tokenization.

The Block reached out to Asian crypto players for their insights on this year’s significant developments and their expectations for 2025.

With key jurisdictions like Singapore and Hong Kong having laid the policy foundations over the past few years, 2024 “was a lot about getting them live,” said Angela Ang, senior policy advisor at TRM Labs and a former regulator at the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

In April, Singapore introduced regulations that appear to be more stringent for companies engaging in cryptocurrency or digital payment token (DPT) services. According to the MAS, the new rules cover custodial services, enabling token services to facilitate and support international money transfers between countries using them even when funds are not accepted or received in Singapore.

In November, the MAS published two new industry frameworks to support further tokenization efforts for funds and fixed-income instruments.

In 2022, the MAS launched Project Guardian — an initiative aimed at enhancing the efficiency of financial markets through tokenization — and has so far conducted over 15 industry trials in six currencies across multiple financial products on the use of asset tokenization in capital markets. Over 40 financial institutions, industry associations and policymakers across seven jurisdictions have participated in the trials.

“Real-world asset tokenization has been a resurgent theme in 2024. From a policy perspective, this has been reflected in the focus on stablecoin regulation as part of broader efforts around digital money,” said Chengyi Ong, head of public policy in APAC at Chainalysis. “Singapore finalized its policy framework for stablecoins about a year ago, with Hong Kong following suit in early 2024,” Ong added.

John O’Loghlen, managing director of Coinbase APAC, told The Block that the exchange has been actively involved with Project Guardian and several sandboxes with Singaporean regulators.

“Clearly, they've been early movers in stablecoins,” said O’Loghlen. “In terms of looking around APAC in a regulated market, Singapore is clearly the leader.”

Meanwhile, the city-state continued to issue licenses to global crypto exchanges this year. For example, OKX’s Singapore entity, OKX SG, received its full Major Payment Institution license in September. In October, Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, also obtained in-principle approval for its MPI license application.

“Looking ahead to 2025, we expect Asia’s regulatory landscape to continue evolving,” said Saad Ahmed, head of Asia Pacific at Gemini. “Markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong are likely to introduce more innovative financial products and refine their frameworks to drive adoption.”

Since 2023, Hong Kong has “made remarkable progress in providing regulatory transparency to attract the industry into its jurisdiction,” said Willy Chuang, COO of WOO X. “The government has offered a stringent and favorable policy combination regarding taxation, OTC trading, virtual asset distribution, virtual asset management, and a licensing system for mandatory virtual asset service providers.”

Hong Kong officially launched six spot bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds in April as the region continues its drive to become a crypto hub. 

However, the three spot bitcoin ETFs saw lackluster trading volumes just weeks after their debut. However, they gained momentum in November as pro-crypto sentiment grew following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. According to SoSoValue data, the ETFs recorded a combined daily trading volume of $26.3 million on Nov. 21, compared to $9.7 million on April 30, their launch date.

Hashkey Capital Liquid Fund Partner Jupiter Zheng told The Block that his team anticipates more significant inflows as local financial institutions loosen their control over regulated crypto products with the necessary support from regulators. “Currently, limited investor access to these products hampers trading volume and AUM,” Zheng said.

In an interview in November, Livio Weng, CEO of Hong Kong-based HashKey Exchange, told The Block that adding ETH staking features to the spot ether ETFs may give them a competitive edge.

“If Hong Kong is the only jurisdiction to offer staking features, that could give it a fresh edge,” said Ang of TRM Labs. “That said, with the new Republican government likely to take a more crypto-friendly stance, we could see staking allowed for U.S. ETH ETFs as well.”

In July, South Korea’s first crypto regulatory framework, the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, was enacted. The framework strongly focuses on investor protection. As part of this legislation, crypto exchanges must hold at least 80% of user deposits in cold storage.

“The introduction of this new regulation has intensified competition within South Korean exchanges while project teams are further standardizing token market-making requirements to respond to ongoing regulatory scrutiny,” said Chuang of WOO X.

Meanwhile, in November, Nikkie Asia reported that Japan’s financial watchdog aims to introduce an “asset retention order” under relevant legislation to prevent foreign crypto exchanges from transferring domestic assets overseas in the event of a collapse.

In Taiwan, new anti-money laundering rules for crypto firms took effect on Nov. 30, a month earlier than initially planned, as regulators ramped up fraud prevention efforts. Non-compliance may lead to penalties, including imprisonment for up to two years and a fine of up to NT$5 million ($153,700).

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。