The "fork moment" brought by compliant stablecoins

From a macro perspective, stablecoins are entering an unprecedented phase of reshuffle. In July, US President Trump officially signed the GENIUS Act, marking the finalization of stablecoin legislation. In August, Hong Kong's Stablecoin Ordinance also came into effect, becoming the world's first regional regulatory framework. At the same time, major economies such as Japan and South Korea are also accelerating the follow-up of regulatory details, intending to allow compliant entities to issue stablecoins. In other words, the stablecoin market has ushered in a true "regulatory window"—from a liquidity tool that grew in the gray area to a financial infrastructure that combines compliance and experimentation. Why pay attention to "compliant stablecoins"? Within the stablecoin classification system, regulated stablecoins occupy a unique and critical position. First, from a market demand perspective, stablecoins are no longer just "general equivalents" for on-chain transactions. For crypto-native users, they are core assets for risk aversion and liquidity; for traditional institutions, they may represent a new tool for cross-border settlement, treasury management, and payment clearing. However, stablecoins like USDT have historically expanded naturally due to market demand. Despite their enormous size, they have long operated in a regulatory gray area, facing scrutiny due to insufficient transparency and compliance risks. Compliant stablecoins, on the other hand, have prioritized compliance and usability from their inception. They are issued by regulated entities, meet the licensing requirements of their respective jurisdictions, and are backed by clear asset reserves and legal responsibilities. Simply put, the defining characteristics of compliant stablecoins are: a regulated issuer that meets the licensing requirements of its respective jurisdictions, clear asset reserves and legal responsibilities behind each token, and users and institutions can clearly trace the regulatory body and asset custody arrangements when using them.

This allows them to not only circulate on-chain, but also has the opportunity to be included in corporate financial statements and compliance reports, becoming the "official channel" between traditional finance and the crypto world.

Source: imToken Web (web.token.im)'s compliant stablecoin

From imToken's perspective, stablecoins are no longer a tool that can be summarized by a single narrative, but rather a multi-dimensional "asset complex" - different users and different needs will correspond to different stablecoin choices (further reading: "A Worldview of Stablecoins: How to Build a Stablecoin Classification Framework from a User Perspective?"). Within this categorization, compliant stablecoins (USDC, FDUSD, PYUSD, GUSD, USD1, etc.) are not intended to replace USDT. Instead, they serve as a parallel platform, providing a legal and secure option for cross-border payments, institutional applications, and financial compliance. If the significance of USDT lies in "promoting global liquidity in the crypto market," then the significance of compliant stablecoins lies in "making stablecoins a true part of everyday finance and life."

Overview of Major Compliant Stablecoins

From this perspective, the global paths of compliant stablecoins are not uniform, but the direction is the same—they are shifting from gray liquidity to compliant financial interfaces. Future application scenarios may no longer be limited to exchange matching and arbitrage, but may extend to cross-border payments, corporate treasury management, and even personal daily payments.

Globally, compliant stablecoins have formed several different development paths. In the United States, USDC is the most representative compliant stablecoin. Issued by Circle, it is backed by cash and highly liquid short-term U.S. Treasury bonds and undergoes regular audits to ensure the security of a 1:1 redemption against U.S. dollars. This makes it the most widely adopted dollar-denominated stablecoin by institutions and one of the few stablecoins that can be included in financial statements. Parallel to this is USDP, issued by Paxos Trust Company and holding a trust license from the New York Department of Financial Services. While not as widely circulated as USDC, it has clear compliance attributes and is primarily targeted at institutional payment and clearing scenarios. Meanwhile, PayPal's launch of PYUSD is even more symbolic. It wasn't designed for the trading market, but rather directly addresses the retail payment sector, attempting to truly integrate stablecoins into daily consumption and cross-border transfers. In Hong Kong, the Stablecoin Ordinance, which officially came into effect in August 2025, made it the first region in the world to propose a comprehensive regulatory framework for the issuance, reserve, and custody of stablecoins. This means that stablecoins issued in Hong Kong are no longer tokens in a gray area, but rather tools truly recognized by financial regulators. FDUSD, issued by First Digital, is a representative example of this.

In Japan, JPYC became the first approved yen stablecoin, issued by JPYC Inc. and regulated by a money transfer service provider license. It will be backed by liquid assets such as government bonds. The Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) plans to approve it as early as this fall. It has completed registration as a remittance business operator and plans to deploy its yen stablecoin on the Ethereum, Avalanche and Polygon networks.

Similarly, South Korea is currently exploring the application of the Korean won stablecoin through a "regulatory sandbox", focusing on cross-border payments and B2B settlement. These attempts collectively point to a common trend: compliant stablecoins aren't meant to challenge the market dominance of USDT or USDC, but rather to carve out a new niche, serving real-world scenarios where compliance and transparency are crucial. Their emergence signals a shift in the stablecoin narrative from "gray liquidity in the trading market" to "a legitimate interface for global finance." While the three approaches differ, their direction remains highly consistent: compliant stablecoins are becoming a parallel to USDT. Their significance lies not in competing for liquidity supremacy but in providing a new, legal, transparent, and regulated option for financial institutions, cross-border payments, and everyday applications. What's next? Overall, the biggest structural change in TradFi by 2025 will be the widespread emergence of compliant stablecoins. The focus of competition is shifting from scale and traffic to compliance capabilities and application penetration. Whether it's Hong Kong's pioneering "Stablecoin Ordinance" or the tightening regulation of USDC, PYUSD, and other cryptocurrencies in the US market, they all send the same message: stablecoins that truly serve global users and traditional capital will need to deeply integrate off-chain compliance with on-chain structures. This also signals a shift in the competitive logic of stablecoins, from "who has more US dollar reserves" to "who can more quickly enter the most realistic user scenarios," including cross-border settlement, corporate treasuries, retail payments, and daily consumption. Driven by this trend, new compliance initiatives are constantly emerging.

For example, emerging stablecoin projects such as USD1, relying on strong traditional capital and policy resources, have emphasized the connection between compliance paths and global usage scenarios from the very beginning. With the political endorsement of the Trump family, USD1 has achieved phenomenal "from 0 to 1" growth and coverage of top exchanges only half a year after its birth:

Since March, the issuance volume has soared to US$2.1 billion, surpassing FDUSD and PYUSD to become the world's fifth largest stablecoin (CoinMarketCap data), and has swept top CEXs such as HTX, Bitget, and Binance. In contrast, PYUSD, backed by PayPal, has been struggling to penetrate the market for two years. At the same time, infrastructure around Liquidity-as-a-Service is also emerging, with the goal of making stablecoins more than just token symbols on the chain, but allowing them to be directly called as settlement APIs globally. This also leads to a foreseeable future scenario: cross-border payments, corporate treasuries, and even personal daily payments may gradually find a new balance between USDT's gray liquidity and the whitelist system of compliant stablecoins.

From a more macro perspective, stablecoins are undergoing "forks", and the future landscape is destined to be multi-faceted and parallel:

• USDT continues to serve as the liquidity engine of the global encryption market;

• income-generating stablecoins meet the demand for capital appreciation;

• non-US dollar stablecoins open up a multi-polar narrative;

• compliant stablecoins are gradually embedded in the real financial world;

over the past decade, USDT The gray force of "spontaneous growth" has driven global liquidity in the crypto market. Semi-compliant products like USDC have built a bridge between the gray and white worlds. Now, with the passage of the US GENIUS Act, the entry into force of Hong Kong's Stablecoin Ordinance, and the subsequent pilot programs in Japan and South Korea, compliant stablecoins are entering a true window of opportunity. This time, stablecoins will no longer be just a tool for on-chain users but will become a ubiquitous financial vehicle for cross-border settlement, corporate treasuries, and even everyday consumption. This is the significance of compliant stablecoins: allowing stablecoins to truly transcend the crypto world and enter everyday finance and life.