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

It may be the hottest technology concept in June besides AI. The enthusiasm of Internet giants for stablecoins has brought it back into the mainstream.

On June 17, 2025, Liu Qiangdong, chairman of the board of directors of JD.com Group, said at a sharing meeting: "JD.com will apply for stablecoin licenses in major currency countries around the world, with the goal of reducing cross-border payment costs by 90% and increasing transfer time to within 10 seconds."

This may be the first time that the founder or CEO of a Chinese Internet giant has publicly stated that he will deploy cryptocurrency.

Stablecoins are essentially a type of cryptocurrency.

Unlike cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, whose prices fluctuate violently, stablecoins maintain price stability by anchoring legal currencies (such as the US dollar, Hong Kong dollar, etc.) or assets.

Its main advantages are cost and efficiency. According to a survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the cross-border payment efficiency of stablecoins can be 100 times higher than that of traditional payments, and the cost is more than 10 times lower.

This fintech track, which has always survived in the "gray area" and on the edge of a niche, is exploding.According to public data, in May 2025, the total market value of the global stablecoin market has exceeded US$246.3 billion, an increase of nearly 50 times from 2019.

Not only that, on June 5, Circle, the first stablecoin concept stock, was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Its stock price soared 168% on the first day, and its market value exceeded US$18.3 billion, while its employees were less than 1,000. Circle's listing has also given other stablecoin companies great confidence. Recently, technology giants such as Ant Group, Walmart, and Amazon are actively promoting their own stablecoin projects.

In 2014, when JD.com went public in the United States, Liu Qiangdong once admitted that the biggest mistake was not to lay out payment earlier, and was left far behind by Alipay and WeChat Pay.

Today, under the wave of cross-border e-commerce and going overseas, with the influx of large companies, stablecoins have become a new outlet in the payment field that cannot be missed.

In the future, how will the use of stablecoins to purchase overseas goods and cross-border transfers become a reality step by step? Will stablecoins become the next main battlefield for giants?

According to the information exposed by JD, JD's stablecoin, named JD-HKD, is a cryptocurrency pegged 1:1 to the Hong Kong dollar (HKD). In other words, each stablecoin issued is backed by highly liquid assets (cash, government bonds, etc.) worth 1 Hong Kong dollar, which are managed by licensed banks and audited regularly.

JD Stablecoin is issued in Hong Kong by JD.com's JD CoinChain Technology (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd.

The company was registered in March 2024 and holds licenses No. 1, 4, and 9 issued by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission. Its business covers securities trading, asset management, and blockchain technology development.

Currently, JD Stablecoin has entered the second phase of the "Stablecoin Issuer Sandbox" test of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. (The "Sandbox" is a test plan for institutions that intend to issue stablecoins in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to facilitate two-way communication and explore the regulatory system for achieving compliance)

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

In an interview with TECHHUB NEWS in May, Liu Peng, CEO of JD CoinChain Technology, explained the application scenarios that JD Stablecoin is testing, mainly including cross-border payments, investment transactions, retail payments, etc.

Combined with public information, the details are as follows:

• In terms of cross-border payments, at present, cross-border payments mainly rely on the SWIFT system, and its cross-border transfers take 2-4 days, and the fees account for 1-3% of the transaction amount. Stablecoins can reduce the time to seconds and reduce costs by 90%.

• In terms of investment transactions, JD is working with compliant cryptocurrency exchanges to support institutions and retail investors in digital asset transactions and provide stable pricing and settlement tools.

• In terms of retail payment, we will connect with e-commerce platforms such as JD.com Hong Kong and Macau Station, and try to support consumers to pay directly with JD-HKD.

It is not difficult to see that JD.com's ambition in payment covers both B-end and C-end.

As Liu Qiangdong said in his sharing on June 17, "After the B-end payment is completed, we will penetrate into the C-end payment. I hope that one day everyone can use JD.com stable currency to pay when consuming around the world."

The impact of stable currency on the traditional payment system brings opportunities to e-commerce giants, which means lower transaction costs, faster capital circulation, and the opportunity to overtake in the cross-border trade market.

In addition, stable currency itself is also a business with a high profit margin.

Take Circle, whose stock price has just risen sharply, as an example. Its net profit in 2023 is 268 million US dollars, and its net profit in 2024 is 156 million US dollars.

Circle has two main sources of income:

1. Reserve interest income: Users can invest in low-risk assets (such as US Treasury bonds) with the fiat currency funds used to purchase stablecoins, and earn interest rate spreads. According to the financial report, this income accounted for 99% of the total revenue in 2024. It also shows that its business model is highly dependent on interest rates.

2. Transaction fees: Service fees are charged in scenarios such as cross-border payments and currency exchanges.

This can be compared to the business model of JD.com's stablecoin, which will not be expanded here.

Big companies compete for stablecoins and gather in Hong Kong

JD.com is not the only giant targeting stablecoins. Global Internet and financial giants have already heard the news.

For example, in June, Ant International and Ant Digits announced that they would apply for stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong and Singapore. Ant Digits has set Hong Kong as its global headquarters and tested stablecoin applications in the regulatory sandbox, focusing on global treasury management and cross-border payments.

As retail platforms, Amazon and Walmart have similar logic to JD.com in entering the stablecoin market. Among them, Walmart tries to attract users who are not covered by traditional banks and expand into emerging markets through the low handling fees of stablecoins.

Xiaomi chose to enter the market lightly, and its subsidiary Tianxing Bank cooperated with JD.com Coin Chain to develop cross-border payment solutions.

In addition, traditional payment providers (such as Visa and PayPal) have also launched their own stablecoin solutions, trying to maintain market share through cooperation.

For giants, Hong Kong is an excellent place to deploy stablecoins. Hong Kong's unique advantages lie in its status as an international financial center, its mature regulatory system and its connectivity with the mainland.

In May 2025, the Stablecoin Ordinance passed by Hong Kong stipulates that it is the world's first legal currency stablecoin regulatory framework, requiring issuers to hold HK$25 million in paid-in capital and reserve 1:1 highly liquid assets (such as cash and government bonds) to ensure stability and transparency.

The ordinance will take effect in August 2025.

Thus, the players with strong strength selected have formed three types of forces competing in the Hong Kong stablecoin ecosystem:

• Chinese technology giants: JD.com, Ant, Xiaomi, etc., relying on e-commerce scenarios and user base, seize cross-border payment and other scenarios;

• Traditional financial institutions: Standard Chartered Bank, Hong Kong Telecom, JPMorgan Chase, etc., layout stablecoin issuance, trading and derivatives business, aiming at the global financial market;

• Web3 enterprises: Yuanbi Technology, which issues the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin HKDR, etc.;

The current popularity of stablecoins is largely due to the gradual improvement of supervision.With the accelerated legislation in Hong Kong, the United States, the European Union and other places, stablecoins have moved from the "gray area" to compliance, allowing large companies and institutions to dare to enter the market.

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

Just as WeChat Pay has reshaped the mobile payment ecosystem, stablecoins may become the "new SWIFT" in the digital age. With more and more heavyweight players entering the market, the competition for the dominance of the next generation of global payment networks has begun.

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