Key points
Strategic positioning: JD.com plans to reduce cross-border payment costs by 90% and speed up settlement to within 10 seconds through stablecoins. The first phase focuses on B-side cross-border trade settlement, and the long-term goal is to cover C-side consumption scenarios.
Technical architecture: Issued based on the public chain, it uses 100% legal currency collateral + smart contracts to achieve "second-level account arrival". The reserve assets are managed by licensed institutions and subject to third-party audits.
Compliance path: Selected into the first batch of stablecoin sandbox of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in 2024, complete testing in 2025, apply for a license after the (Stablecoin Ordinance) takes effect in August, launch the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin and explore the offshore RMB peg.
Profit model: Profit from reserve fund interest rate spreads, cross-border handling fees and supply chain financial value-added services, while also directing traffic to the JD ecosystem to increase user stickiness.
Industry landscape: Hong Kong has become a global pioneer in stablecoin regulation. JD.com is competing with giants such as Ant Group and Circle for compliance licenses. The EU MiCA Act and the US GENIUS Act are accelerating global regulatory standardization.
Challenges and opportunities: It needs to deal with regulatory scrutiny in Europe and the United States and the risk of volatility in reserve assets, but it is expected to become a "test field" for the internationalization of the RMB and reshape the cross-border payment infrastructure.
Key nodes for strategic implementation
End of 2023: Hong Kong initiates stablecoin legislation, and JD.com establishes the CoinChain Technology preparatory project.
July 2024: Selected for the HKMA's sandbox to test cross-border payment and supply chain finance scenarios with Standard Chartered Bank and other institutions.
May 2025: Hong Kong passes the (Stablecoin Ordinance), clarifying the license application requirements (1:1 reserve, independent audit, redemption mechanism).
Q4 2025: Officially launched after the license is approved. The first phase of application will be JD Global Sales in Hong Kong and Macau, and will gradually expand to Southeast Asia and European markets.
Industry Impact
Reduce costs and increase efficiency: Traditional cross-border payments take 2-4 days and cost 6%, while stablecoins can be compressed to minutes and costs can be reduced to less than 0.1%.
Ecosystem empowerment: Provide clearing tools for JD’s cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses, and explore cross-border application scenarios of digital RMB.
Regulatory demonstration: Hong Kong’s sandbox mechanism facilitates “regulatory-enterprise” collaboration and may become a global stablecoin compliance template.
Risks and Responses
Regulatory compliance: Need to meet anti-money laundering (AML) requirements in multiple places, Hong Kong’s sandbox experience helps global business development.
Market competition: $USDT and $USDC occupy 90% of the market. JD.com differentiates its positioning in traditional trade scenarios to avoid their edge.
Technical security: Learning from the Terra collapse, we adopt an over-collateralization + real-time audit mechanism to prevent the risk of de-anchoring.
Conclusion
JD Stablecoin is driven by "compliance + scenarios" and aims at the trillion-level cross-border payment market. If successfully implemented, it will not only reshape JD's financial landscape, but also become a key infrastructure for the internationalization of the RMB.
