Solana (SOL) Moves In on Hong Kong Banks to Scale Its $14 Billion Stablecoin Market

Hong Kong's Stablecoins Ordinance took effect in August 2025, requiring issuers to secure an HKMA license and maintain full fiat backing with redemption rights before they can offer a fiat-referenced token. Standard Chartered-backed Anchorpoint Financial is one of the first to clear that bar. Until now, Solana's stablecoin activity ran mainly through dollar tokens like USDC and Tether's USDT, while Ethereum and Tron have dominated Asian dollar-stablecoin settlement for years.

Anchorpoint's FRS01 license forces full backing and redemption for every HKDAP token, so banks and brokers working with Standard Chartered gain a redemption path, not just a trading instrument. Solana developers can now settle in a regulated Hong Kong dollar token instead of routing through offshore dollar stablecoins. The arrangement taps a market reported at $14.13 billion, with Anchorpoint-linked assets already representing 75% of tracked holdings, a scale rival chains without an HKD-licensed issuer cannot yet match.

Framing the deal against mainland China's blanket crypto ban exposes a split: Beijing closes the door while Hong Kong opens a licensed side entrance for the same technology. Full backing and redemption rules bring HKDAP closer to regulated e-money than to the permissionless stablecoins Solana built its reputation on. Whether that trade-off buys Solana institutional credibility or simply imports banking-style constraints onto a public blockchain is a real argument among builders, not a settled question.

The next marker is whether HKDAP goes live with native issuance and redemption on Solana, since the current step covers the license and partnership rather than a working product. Movement in the $14.13 billion figure, and whether Anchorpoint-linked assets push past their current 75% share of tracked Hong Kong stablecoins, will show whether this regulated rail pulls real volume away from incumbent dollar stablecoins.