Ant Group and JD.com Quickly Enter the Stablecoin Market: Why Do Giants Always Seem to Be Three Steps Ahead?

Text|RWA Knowledge Circle

Edit|RWA Knowledge Circle

1. From Tether to Ant JD, why have stablecoins become a battleground for giants?

In 2014, Tether issued the world’s first stablecoin USDT, at a time when cryptocurrencies were still a niche experiment. Eleven years later, in June 2025, JD.com and Ant Group announced their application for a Hong Kong stablecoin license, causing a stir in the market. This is by no means a spur-of-the-moment decision—stablecoins have become the core infrastructure in the field of RWA (Real World Assets) tokenization, especially in cross-border trade, asset liquidity, and enterprise-level payment scenarios, where their value is being redefined by the market.

For B-end enterprises, the three major necessities of stablecoins have emerged:

Cross-border payment cost reduction and efficiency improvement: Traditional SWIFT cross-border settlement takes 2-3 days, while blockchain-based stablecoins can achieve settlement in seconds, reducing transaction fees by over 70%;

Asset liquidity upgrade: On-chain funds of enterprises can be disassembled and combined in real time, solving the problem of mismatched payment terms.

Compliance in Digital Asset Management: Stablecoins anchored to fiat currency become the "compliance passport" for enterprises entering the Web3 world.

II. Giant Positioning Battle: Policy Sensitivity Determines Business Opportunities

Rome wasn't built in a day. While many B-end enterprises have yet to realize the commercial potential of stablecoins, tech giants represented by Ant Group have already laid out their plans in advance based on policy evolution. Looking at the development context of Hong Kong's "Stablecoin Regulatory Framework," Ant's actions resonate with the timing of policy milestones:

2023: Hong Kong released the world's first "Stablecoin Regulatory Framework," and Ant immediately initiated technical reserves;

April 2025: Ant Group signs a contract with the Hong Kong government, establishing its overseas headquarters.

May 2025: Completed real-time allocation of tokenized deposits in collaboration with HSBC, verifying on-chain settlement capabilities.

June 6, 2025: The Hong Kong "Stablecoin Regulation" announcement will take effect on August 1, and Ant Group announced the first batch of license applications on June 12.

This closed loop of "policy - technology - ecosystem" demonstrates the logic of stablecoins as a strategic pivot for financial services globalization for giants. Taking Ant International as an example, its three major businesses—Alipay+ (cross-border payment), Wanlihui (cross-border finance for SMEs), and Antong (merchant acquiring)—are inherently aligned with stablecoins. In 2024, among the over $1 trillion in funds flowing through Ant International, $300 billion has already been processed via blockchain—if half of it migrates to its own stablecoin system, it will activate an endogenous transaction volume of $150 billion, equivalent to creating another cross-border payment giant.

3. Technical Moat: How to Support Trillion-Level Enterprise Applications?

Stablecoins are just the tip of the iceberg for RWA. A deep dive into Ant's technical architecture reveals that these investments hold important implications for companies seeking compliant development:

High-performance trading engine: Layer 2 blockchain Jovay designed for RWA, supports 100,000 TPS and 100 milliseconds response time, a thousand times faster than Ethereum;

Developer ecosystem tool: The open-source virtual machine DTVM is compatible with Ethereum and integrates the AI framework SmartCogent, reducing the development threshold for enterprises.

Asset on-chain infrastructure: "Two Chains and One Bridge" (AntChain Asset Chain + Cross-Chain Bridge + Jovay) opens up the tokenization path for trillion-yuan physical assets such as new energy.

The advancement of blockchain technology marks the entry of RWA into the "millisecond-level trusted transaction" era—enterprises can complete complex operations such as bulk energy trading and supply chain finance on the chain, while stablecoins will become the "blood" of these scenarios.

4. Breaking the Dilemma of Small and Medium Enterprises: There Are Still Golden Opportunities in the RWA Track

When giants like Ant Group, JD.com, and Amazon seize the high ground, do small and medium-sized enterprises have no chance at all? Absolutely not! The core value of RWA lies in the diversification of asset types and the fragmentation of scenarios:

New energy, supply chain notes, real estate and other segmented tracks are still in a blue ocean.

Regional trade, vertical industry settlement and other scenarios require customized stablecoin solutions.

However, small and medium-sized enterprises need to overcome three major hurdles:

Licensing Compliance: License applications in places like Hong Kong take 6-8 months and involve legal structures and reserve audits;

Technical Architecture: On-chain issuance, custody, cross-chain integration, etc. Development costs exceed one million dollars.

Ecosystem expansion: Challenges in building liquidity pools, integrating merchant access, and other resource integration issues.

Professional institutions are becoming key drivers in breaking through challenges, providing full-cycle support for small and medium-sized enterprises: from designing compliance paths for licenses from Hong Kong MAS to Singapore MAS, to lightweight development frameworks based on open-source tools like DTVM; from tokenization services connecting banks and other custodians, to precise ecological diversion in cross-border e-commerce scenarios, forming a closed-loop solution covering licenses, technology, capital, and market.

5. Stablecoins are the "digital infrastructure revolution" for B-end finance.

From the heavy deployment by giants to the infiltration of scenarios by small and medium-sized enterprises, stablecoins are evolving from "cryptocurrency tools" to enterprise-level financial operating systems. With the Hong Kong "Stablecoin Regulation" taking effect in August, Chinese enterprises will usher in a new round of "licensed competition." For small and medium-sized enterprises, achieving a "compliance + technology + ecosystem" integration through systematic knowledge empowerment and resource connection presents a significant opportunity to share in the dividends in scenarios such as cross-border trade and vertical industry chain finance—after all, the future of the digital economy has never been a solo performance by the giants.