Liu Qiangdong announced the development of stablecoins, and large companies have found a "new gold mine"

Author: Su Zihua

Editor: Jing Yu

Stablecoins are on fire.

It might be the hottest tech concept in June, apart from AI. The enthusiasm of internet giants for stablecoins has brought them back into the mainstream view.

On June 17, 2025, Liu Qiangdong, Chairman of the Board of JD Group, stated in a sharing session: "JD will apply for stablecoin licenses in major currency countries globally, with the goal of reducing cross-border payment costs by 90% and improving transfer time to within 10 seconds."

This might be the first time a founder or CEO of a Chinese internet giant has publicly stated plans to layout cryptocurrency.

Stablecoins are essentially a type of cryptocurrency.

Unlike cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum with volatile prices, stablecoins maintain price stability by anchoring to legal tender (such as US dollars, Hong Kong dollars) or assets.

Its main advantages are cost and efficiency. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) research shows that stablecoins' cross-border payment efficiency can be 100 times higher than traditional payments, with costs over 10 times lower.

This financial technology track, which has survived in the "gray area" and remained niche, is now exploding. According to public data, in May 2025, the global stablecoin market's total market value has exceeded $246.3 billion, growing nearly 50 times since 2019.

Moreover, on June 5, the first stablecoin concept stock Circle went public on the New York Stock Exchange, with its stock price surging 168% on the first day, with a market value exceeding $18.3 billion, while having fewer than 1,000 employees. Circle's listing has also boosted confidence for other stablecoin companies. Recently, Ant Group, Walmart, Amazon, and other tech giants are actively promoting their respective stablecoin projects.

In 2014, when JD went public in the US, Liu Qiangdong candidly admitted that his biggest mistake was not laying out payment strategies earlier, being far behind Alipay and WeChat Pay.

Now, under the wave of cross-border e-commerce and going overseas, with tech giants flocking in, stablecoins have become an unmissable new trend in the payment field.

In the future, how will the scenario of purchasing overseas goods and cross-border transfers using stablecoins gradually become a reality? Will stablecoins become the next main battlefield for tech giants?

According to JD's disclosed information, JD's stablecoin, called JD-HKD, is a cryptocurrency pegged 1:1 to the Hong Kong dollar (HKD). This means that for each stablecoin issued, there is an equivalent high-liquidity asset (cash, government bonds, etc.) worth 1 Hong Kong dollar, backed by a licensed bank and regularly audited.

JD's stablecoin is issued by JD Coin Chain Technology (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of JD.

This company was registered in March 2024 and holds the 1st, 4th, and 9th licenses issued by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, covering securities trading, asset management, and blockchain technology development.

Currently, JD's stablecoin has entered the second phase of testing in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's "Stablecoin Issuer Sandbox". (The "sandbox" is a mechanism by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to allow institutions interested in issuing stablecoins in Hong Kong to test their operational plans, facilitating two-way communication to explore a compliant regulatory system)

So, what is the purpose of JD's stablecoin?

Liu Peng, CEO of JD Coin Chain Technology, explained the application scenarios being tested for JD's stablecoin in an interview with TECHHUB NEWS in May, primarily including cross-border payments, investment trading, and retail payments.

Combining public information, the details are as follows:

• In cross-border payments, currently, cross-border payments mainly rely on the SWIFT system, with transfers taking 2-4 days and fees accounting for 1-3% of the transaction amount. Stablecoins can reduce time to seconds and costs by 90%.

• In investment trading, JD is collaborating with compliant cryptocurrency exchanges to support institutional and retail investors in digital asset trading, providing stable pricing and settlement tools.

• In retail payments, it aims to connect with JD's Hong Kong and Macau e-commerce platforms, attempting to support consumers paying directly with JD-HKD.

It's not difficult to see that JD's ambitions in payments cover both B-end and C-end.

As Liu Qiangdong said in his June 17 sharing, "After completing B-end payments, we will penetrate into C-end payments, hoping that one day people can use JD stablecoins to pay when consuming worldwide."

The impact of stablecoins on traditional payment systems and the opportunities for e-commerce giants means lower transaction costs, faster fund circulation, and a chance to overtake in cross-border trade markets.

Additionally, stablecoins themselves are a high-profit business.

Taking the recently listed Circle as an example, its net profit was $268 million in 2023 and $156 million in 2024.

Circle's main revenue sources are two-fold:

1. Reserve fund interest income: The legal currency funds from users buying stablecoins can be invested in low-risk assets (such as US Treasury bonds), earning interest spreads. According to financial reports, this income accounted for 99% of total revenue in 2024, showing its business model's high dependence on interest rates.

2. Transaction fees: Service fees for cross-border payments, currency exchange, and other scenarios.

The business model of JD's stablecoin can be analogized similarly, which will not be elaborated here.

JD is not the only giant eyeing stablecoins. Global internet and financial giants have already been stirring.

For instance, in June, Ant International and Ant Digital announced they will apply for stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong and Singapore. Ant Digital has set Hong Kong as its global headquarters and is testing stablecoin applications in the regulatory sandbox, focusing on global treasury management and cross-border payments.

As retail platforms, Amazon and Walmart's logic for entering the stablecoin market is similar to JD's. Among them, Walmart is trying to attract users not covered by traditional banks and expand into emerging markets through stablecoins' low transaction fees.

Xiaomi has chosen a lightweight entry, with its Xinxing Bank collaborating with JD Coin Chain to develop cross-border payment solutions.

Traditional payment providers (such as Visa, PayPal) have also launched their own stablecoin solutions, attempting to maintain market share through collaboration.

For these giants, Hong Kong is an excellent location for stablecoin deployment. Hong Kong's unique advantages lie in its international financial center status, mature regulatory system, and connectivity with mainland China.

In May 2025, Hong Kong passed the "Stablecoin Regulations", becoming the world's first legal tender stablecoin regulatory framework, requiring issuers to have 25 million Hong Kong dollars in paid-in capital and maintain 1:1 high-liquidity assets (such as cash, government bonds) to ensure stability and transparency.

The regulation will take effect in August 2025.

At this point, the selected powerful players have formed three forces in the Hong Kong stablecoin ecosystem:

• Chinese tech giants: JD.com, Ant Group, Xiaomi, etc., leveraging e-commerce scenarios and user base to seize cross-border payment scenarios;

• Traditional financial institutions: Standard Chartered Bank, Hong Kong Telecom, JPMorgan Chase, etc., laying out stablecoin issuance, trading, and derivative businesses, targeting the global financial market;

• Web3 enterprises: Circle Technology, which issues the HKD stablecoin HKDR;

The current popularity of stablecoins is largely due to the gradual improvement of regulations.As Hong Kong, the United States, the European Union, and other regions accelerate legislation, stablecoins are moving from the "gray area" to compliance, allowing major companies and institutions to enter the market.

Standard Chartered Bank predicts that the global stablecoin market size will reach $2 trillion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 58%.

Just as WeChat Pay reshaped the mobile payment ecosystem, stablecoins may become the "new SWIFT" of the digital era. As more heavyweight players enter the game, the competition for dominance of the next-generation global payment network has begun.

Regulatory compliance and payment experience remain key variables, and their progress may profoundly affect our daily payment habits and even the future global payment landscape.