Hello, Asia. Here’s what’s making news on the markets:
Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of the top news stories during U.S. business hours and insight into market movements and analysis. For a detailed look at US markets, check out CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
Six years after China’s eCNY debut, Hong Kong’s FinTech Week showed how the digital currency narrative has shifted to stablecoins, while Brazil’s Drex pivot (the country’s own CBDC project) highlighted the waning momentum of central bank projects.
Once touted as the future of sovereign money, central bank digital currencies are disappearing as market-driven stablecoins take center stage. At this year’s Hong Kong FinTech Week, banks, fintechs and regulators focused on token deposits and HKD-backed stablecoins rather than state-issued digital cash.
This shift marks a turning point in the global digital currency experience: central banks are slowing down their retail ambitions, Brazil’s Drex pause being the clearest example, while private issuers build the infrastructure that CBDCs were intended to provide.
It could be argued 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 targeting its user base of 1.7 billion, central banks panicked at the idea of a private company controlling global payment channels.
Years later, the collapse of Libra left these same central banks rushing to create digital currencies without a clear goal. 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 currency unions, covering almost all of global GDP, have some sort of CBDC effort in place. Yet despite years of hype, only three have managed to launch one: the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar, Jamaica’s Jam-Dex and Nigeria’s eNaira – hardly the largest economies in the world.
The rest remain mired in committees, pilot programs, and technical studies, unsure whether the public really wants what they’re building.
While central banks are still debating design documents, the private sector is already building the future of money.
“Almost all transactions will eventually be settled on blockchains, and all money will be digital,” Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered, said at FinTech Week.
And what did he mention next?
Stable coins.
Market movement
BTC: Bitcoin is trading at around $105,930, a figure that is little changed over 24 hours, as the market consolidates following recent volatility and profit-taking by leveraged traders.
ETFs: Ethereum is trading near $3,578, sliding slightly as traders turn to Bitcoin and unwind their leveraged DeFi positions, although network activity and staking demand continue to anchor support around current levels.
Gold: Gold jumped more than 2% to around $4,085 an ounce, as weak U.S. economic data and a deal to end the government shutdown bolstered expectations of a Fed rate cut in December, spurring new demand for safe-haven assets.
Nikkei 225: Markets in the Asia-Pacific region advanced on Tuesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 up nearly 1%, as investors followed Wall Street’s rally driven by renewed AI optimism and growing confidence that the U.S. government shutdown will soon end.
Elsewhere in crypto
- Winklevoss’s Gemini Crypto Exchange Falls as Losses Disappoint (Bloomberg)
- Bank of England confirms plans to “temporarily” limit stablecoin holdings (CoinDesk)
