Beijing Business Daily: The People's Bank of China has defined stablecoins for the first time; industry analysts believe this will not affect Hong Kong's related stablecoin initiatives.

The Beijing Business Daily published an article titled "Speculative Trading on the Rise, People's Bank of China Again Cracks Down on Virtual Currencies, and Defines Stablecoins for the First Time."

The article points out that at a recent coordination meeting organized by the People's Bank of China to combat speculative trading of virtual currencies, financial regulatory authorities for the first time provided a clear definition of stablecoins, classifying them as a specific form of virtual currency.

The meeting explicitly stated that current stablecoins still fail to meet effective regulatory requirements in compliance aspects such as customer identification and anti-money laundering, and harbor risks of being used for illegal activities such as money laundering, fundraising fraud, and illegal cross-border fund transfers. Therefore, the central bank reiterated its commitment to maintaining a high-pressure crackdown on all illegal financial activities involving virtual currencies.

It is worth noting that despite the firm stance of the regulatory authorities domestically, industry analysts generally believe that this meeting will not affect Hong Kong's policy layout and market practices in the stablecoin field.

However, for relevant entities in mainland China, if they intend to conduct stablecoin business in Hong Kong in the future, their development space is expected to be significantly constrained, and the scope for business innovation will be greatly reduced.

Related activities will likely focus more on application scenarios with real demand and physical support, such as cross-border payments and supply chain finance, rather than speculative trading. This policy direction further highlights China's regulatory approach of "differentiation between domestic and international markets, and function-oriented regulation" in the field of virtual currencies.