Good morning, Asia. This is what is making news in the markets:
Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top news during US time and an overview of market movements and analysis. For a detailed overview of the US markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
Six years after the eCNY debuted in China, Hong Kong FinTech Week showed how the digital money narrative has shifted toward stablecoins, while Brazil’s Drex pivot (the country’s own CBDC project) underscored the waning momentum of central bank projects.
Once considered the future of sovereign money, central bank digital currencies are fading from view 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 instead of state-issued digital cash.
The change marks a turning point in the global digital currency experiment: central banks are slowing their retail ambitions – Brazil’s Drex pause is the clearest example – while private issuers build the infrastructure that CBDCs were meant to offer.
One could argue 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 aimed at its user base of 1.7 billion people, central banks panicked at the prospect of a private company controlling the world’s payment gateways.
The collapse of Libra years later left those same central banks racing to build digital currencies without a clear purpose. What began as a defensive measure to protect monetary sovereignty has since become a slow and bureaucratic experiment, which the faster and more adaptable stablecoin market has already made obsolete.
According to the Atlantic Council, 137 countries and monetary unions, covering almost all of the world’s GDP, have some form of CBDC effort. However, despite years of hype, only three have managed to launch one: the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar, Jamaica’s Jam-Dex and Nigeria’s eNaira; They are not the largest economies in the world.
The rest remain stuck in committees, pilot programs and technical studies, unsure if the public even wants what they are building.
While central banks are still debating design documents, the private sector is already building the future of money.
“Virtually all transactions will eventually be settled on blockchains, and all money will be digital,” Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters said at FinTech Week.
And what did he mention next?
Stable coins.
Market movement
BTC: bitcoin is trading at around $105,930, little changed in 24 hours, as the market consolidates following recent volatility and profit-taking by leveraged traders.
ETH: Ethereum is trading near $3,578, falling slightly as traders rotate into Bitcoin and unwind leveraged positions in DeFi, although network activity and staking demand continue to anchor support at current levels.
Gold: Gold rose more than 2% to around $4,085 an ounce as weak U.S. economic data and a deal to end the government shutdown boosted expectations of a Fed rate cut in December, driving renewed safe-haven demand.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets advanced on Tuesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 rising nearly 1%, as investors tracked Wall Street’s rally fueled by renewed optimism about AI and growing confidence that the US government shutdown will end soon.
Elsewhere in Crypto
- Winklevoss’ Gemini Crypto Exchange Falls as Losses Disappoint (Bloomberg)
- Bank of England confirms plans for ‘temporary’ stablecoin holding limits (CoinDesk)
