From AFP via HKFP – Hong Kong introduces new stablecoin regulations…
Stablecoin excitement has gripped Hong Kong as the city prepares to launch a licensing system for the less volatile type of cryptocurrency, but authorities warn against overplaying its future role in financial systems.
I have lived through Hong Kong being gripped by Snoopy Dolls, SARS, a milkshake murder, and Carrie Lam’s extradition proposal. I don’t quite see it with this…
Stablecoins are useful internationally because they enable fast, low-cost cross-border payments, handy in markets where hard currency is limited, such as Argentina and Nigeria.
The tokens, bought and sold on digital exchanges, are also used as a safe way for crypto investors to station their profits, instead of converting to cash.
“The size of the stablecoin market has reached a level where the cash flows have geopolitical implications,” said Paul Brody, global blockchain leader at consulting firm EY.
EY still has ‘blockchain’ in job titles?
Traders in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies use stablecoins like Tether as a surrogate for real money because the crypto end of the transactions don’t comply with banks’ ‘know your customer’ and other regulations. So it’s a buffer between the regular financial system and the parallel universe of crypto. It also provides the liquidity that supports the market in Bitcoin and other crypto. Essentially, Tether and other stablecoin issuers (themselves part of the whole crypto pyramid) just print more of their coins to keep Bitcoin’s apparent dollar value up.
The other main use of stablecoins is for money laundering, avoiding capital controls, settling trades in drugs or guns, etc.
Some players in the real-world financial sector think that there might be ways to develop payment systems using legally regulated stablecoins, and not just for Argentines or Nigerians. They just need to find out how using an in-house currency fully backed by real currency can be an improvement on just using… real currency. Like Park N Shop gift vouchers, but way more techie. They’re working on it. Meanwhile, it looks like another solution in search of a problem…
“It makes sense for Hong Kong to try anything — it’s kind of on a declining path, for reasons that are not to do with technology. It’s mostly about the politics, and its relationship with China,” [Jonas Goltermann at Capital Economics] told AFP.
Maybe they’re not that desperate. If you want a stablecoin licence from the HKMA, don’t bother calling them – it’s by invitation only.
“The peak of the Hello Kitty craze in Hong Kong occurred in 2000, particularly during a promotion at McDonald’s that led to massive queues and even riots due to the high demand for Hello Kitty toys.”
Hello Kitty riots. It’s been downhill ever since.
The McDonald’s Snoopy craze took place in late 1998. There was a new Snoopy every day and I remember some of my colleagues going to Mac every morning, buying the Happy Meal, snatching the nasty plastic Snoopy out of the bag and throwing the food away. Because nobody wanted to eat a Happy Meal, like, three days in a row.
And soon enough, in shoebox apartments all over Hong Kong, there was a display of tasteless plastic Snoopy dolls on top of the TV set. You can still buy the whole set in certain shops in Mongkok, in their original display box.
As the same Leggers that passed the NS law in an afternoon continues to ponder the extremely timid LGBT bill, it looks like folk up North may hold a position.
Hong Kong lawmaker apologises to minister after dispute over same-sex bill
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3320469/hong-kong-lawmaker-apologises-minister-after-dispute-over-same-sex-bill
For the many who do not subscribe, the gist is that Stan the Man was accosted by Sec for Constipational in the corridor and urged to support the bill. He apparantly gave short shrift but subsequently retracted, no doubt under persuasion.
The issue could be, as CE expounded on recently, RETAINING TALENT. After all Turing,highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, was gay.
Will be interesting to see how many other members tone down the rhetoric.
@Mary – Methinks it has more to do with aligning legislation to Taiwan’s so when the big day comes, LGBT folk should have little cause for concern.