Anchorpoint Financial started phase-one beta access for its HKDAP stablecoin on August 12, taking Hong Kong’s new stablecoin regime from licensing into live use. The initial rollout is restricted to institutional distributors and professional investors, making HKDAP the first product from either of the city’s two licensed issuers to move from approval to an executed transaction.

The company has given few operating details so far. It has not published circulation, user, or ongoing transaction-volume data, leaving the scale of early activity unclear even as the project records its first real-money movements.

First live transaction under the new framework

The first phase has been deliberately limited. Anchorpoint said HashKey and OSL are its first issuer-authorised distributors, with HashKey completing an initial client mint-and-redemption transaction that covered both fiat on-ramps and off-ramps.

OSL’s role in the launch includes distribution, liquidity, exchange, trading, and settlement support. Together, those arrangements give Anchorpoint a live but tightly controlled starting point as it tests the token with professional market participants before any wider rollout.

How Anchorpoint reached launch

Anchorpoint is a joint venture of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), HKT, and Animoca Brands. The project has moved through Hong Kong’s regulatory process in stages since the partners announced the venture in February 2025, entered the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s stablecoin sandbox in July that year, and formally applied for a license on the same day the city’s Stablecoins Ordinance took effect.

The HKMA received 36 applications for stablecoin issuer licenses and granted the first two on April 10. One went to Anchorpoint and the other to HSBC, meaning Anchorpoint is one of the first entities approved under the regime and the first of the two to reach a live transaction stage.

What the law requires

Hong Kong’s Stablecoins Ordinance took effect on August 1, 2025 and set out core safeguards for issuers. Under the law, reserve assets must be segregated from an issuer’s own funds and must equal at least 100% of tokens in circulation.

The framework also requires issuers to honor valid redemption requests at par as soon as practicable. For non-bank licensees, the law sets a minimum paid-up capital requirement of HK$25 million.

Limited visibility and a cautious rollout

Anchorpoint’s current approach follows a B2B2C model: institutional distributors first, retail users later. That structure fits a regulatory process that has advanced cautiously, but it also means outside observers still have little information to assess actual market uptake.

At this stage, the absence of public data on circulation, distinct users, or sustained transaction volume makes it difficult to judge whether HKDAP is seeing meaningful use or is simply operational in a technical sense. Wider retail access could begin by the end of 2026, subject to market conditions, and that next phase is likely to provide the first clearer test of commercial demand beyond crypto-native trading activity.

Source: www.blockhead.co