Text | RWA Knowledge Circle
Editor|RWA Knowledge Circle
1. New regulations on stablecoins have been implemented in Hong Kong, but stablecoins are far more than just fiat currency anchors!
The Hong Kong Stablecoin Ordinance will officially take effect on August 1, 2025, marking a key step in the regulation of crypto assets in the Asian financial hub. However, most people's understanding of stablecoins still remains at the level of "pegged to the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio". In fact, there are more than 100 stablecoin projects around the world, with significant differences in their design logic and application scenarios. This article will systematically review the four major types of stablecoins and analyze their deep impact on corporate operations.
2. In-depth analysis of the four major stablecoin types and enterprise applications
1. Fiat-collateralized stablecoins (such as USDT, USDC)
Enterprise application value:
This type of stablecoin, with its strong peg to legal tender, allows companies to effectively avoid exchange rate fluctuations during cross-border payments and trade settlements; at the same time, relying on its wide circulation in exchanges, companies can significantly reduce friction costs by exchanging crypto assets. However, companies need to be wary of credit risks from centralized institutions, such as the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank crisis that caused USDC to temporarily decouple, and the sensitivity of policy supervision requires companies to continuously track the compliance dynamics of the issuer. If the legal team lacks practical experience in crypto asset compliance, it will not be able to meet the timeliness requirements of continuously tracking regulatory dynamics.
Core Features:
Issuance mechanism: Issued by centralized institutions with a 1:1 anchoring of fiat currency reserves (e.g. USDT claims that each coin is worth 1 USD)
Stability maintenance: completely dependent on the transparency of the issuer's fiat currency reserves
2. Decentralized over-collateralized stablecoins (such as DAI)
Enterprise application value:
This type of payment system is particularly suitable for enterprises to build censorship-resistant DeFi payment systems by avoiding single point failures. At the same time, the high autonomy of user assets is used to develop automated financial tools on the chain. However, enterprises have to bear the cost of low capital efficiency - the mortgage rate of more than 150% limits the utilization of working capital, and they need to guard against balance sheet fluctuations caused by collateral liquidation in extreme market conditions.
Core Features:
Issuance mechanism: Users over-collateralize ETH and other crypto assets (e.g. 1 ETH mortgaged to get $1500 DAI)
Stability maintenance: relying on smart contract liquidation mechanism and mortgage rate control
3. Algorithmic stablecoins (such as Frax)
Enterprise application value:
The capital efficiency released by the uncollateralized design allows enterprises to gain significant advantages in high-frequency small-amount payment scenarios, and the decentralized issuance model further reduces the threshold for technical access. However, the case of the collapse of UST, which caused enterprises to lose more than 40 billion US dollars in the short term, warns us that its stability and fragility may cause devastating blows, and the complex algorithm mechanism also requires enterprises to seek the cooperation of professional auditing agencies. But as an inexperienced enterprise that wants to try the RWA track, it is difficult to find an auditing agency with relevant experience.
Core Features:
Issuance mechanism: Dynamically adjust supply and demand through algorithms (e.g. Frax uses partial collateral + algorithmic regulation)
Stability maintenance: relying on market arbitrage mechanism and protocol bond design
4. Interest-bearing stablecoins (such as USDe, sUSDa)
Enterprise application value:
The characteristic of holding interest can enable enterprises to obtain 5-15% additional income on idle funds. This dual function of "value storage + income generation" is reshaping the logic of corporate treasury management. However, the source of income is highly dependent on the profitability of the protocol (such as the fluctuation of Lido pledge income), and the multi-layer asset portfolio increases the complexity of risk control, requiring a professional team to monitor the health of the mechanism in real time.
Core Features:
Issuance mechanism: Based on the distribution of collateral asset income (such as USDe anchored to ETH staking income)
Stability maintenance: dual reliance on collateral value and sustainability of interest-bearing mechanism
3. Chinese companies are accelerating their layout in the stablecoin market
Domestic dynamics: With the clarification of the regulatory framework for stablecoins in Hong Kong, the pace of domestic enterprises' exploration of the stablecoin track has significantly accelerated. Many technology and e-commerce groups, including JD.com and Ant, have launched relevant R&D plans, and it is expected that enterprise-level payment solutions for cross-border trade scenarios will be launched in Q4 2025. Such layouts generally focus on optimizing supply chain settlement efficiency through stablecoin technology, shortening cross-border payment cycles, and exploring the integration path of on-chain financial services.
As the new Hong Kong regulations provide a clear compliance path, many small and medium-sized business owners have not yet realized that their cross-border trade, supply chain management or Web3 businesses are losing 15%-30% of their operating efficiency each year due to the lack of stablecoin tools. Three types of companies will benefit first:
Cross-border trade companies: Reduce SWIFT settlement costs by 97% and reduce payment periods by 3-5 days
Supply chain management companies: Achieve on-chain payments to multi-level suppliers in minutes
Web3 Ecosystem Enterprises: Building Compliant Fiat Currency Deposit and Withdrawal Channels to Improve User Experience
Action suggestion: The above-mentioned transformation dividends must be realized through professional RWA accelerator institutions - they provide full-cycle services from compliance architecture design, technical solution implementation to liquidity introduction, which can help companies avoid 90% of trial and error costs.
4. Stablecoins are just the tip of the iceberg in the RWA track
As a primary form of real-world assets (RWA), stablecoins have more scenarios to be developed:
Real estate tokenization: Commercial real estate shareholding lowers investment threshold
Carbon credit tokenization: programmable trading of corporate ESG assets
Bill digitization: Commercial acceptance bills are circulated on the chain
However, RWA issuance needs to break through three barriers:
Compliance framework: Must meet regulatory requirements such as securities law, anti-money laundering, and cross-border data flows
Technical solution: asset chain oracle mechanism, liquidation logic design
Ecosystem integration: Collaboration among exchanges, custodians, and auditing agencies
Faced with these barriers, for companies that are just beginning to explore the RWA track, if they lack practical experience, a systematic knowledge system and skill reserves will become the key to breaking through. Practical courses focusing on the RWA field can be just such a help - the course brings together senior experts in the fields of compliance, technology and ecological integration, deeply disassembles the design logic of stablecoins and the entire process of asset tokenization, and combines cutting-edge policy cases such as the new Hong Kong regulations to guide companies to build compliance architectures, implement technical solutions and achieve ecological synergy. For novice companies that have just entered the RWA track or practitioners seeking to increase their competitiveness, such a learning opportunity is enough to help them quickly understand the core points, move forward steadily in the RWA track, and avoid unnecessary detours.
