Tag Archives: asia

Iran war pushes Asia’s Gulf migrants to use stablecoins for remittances

Iran war pushes Asia’s Gulf migrants to use stablecoins for remittances
Asian migrant workers in the Gulf are testing stablecoins as a backup channel for sending money home, as the Iran war heightens fears that the risk of US sanctions could disrupt remittances that millions of families and several Asian economies rely on.

Remittances from these workers account for 3 per cent to 5 per cent of gross domestic product in several emerging markets – in Nepal, it is as high as 10 per cent, according to data from the Global Settlement Network.

Concerns over remittance flows have escalated after the US warned against toll payments to Iran for ship passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which has largely been blocked amid the ongoing conflict between the two countries.

“There has been a quiet but noticeable informal pivot among South Asian migrant workers, including a significant number from India, towards digital tokens such as stablecoins in the period following the Iran conflict,” said Anndy Lian, a Singapore-based adviser to governments on blockchain and information technology.

“Rather than routing everything through traditional dollar-linked banking channels, a slice of remittances is now moving via instruments like USDT,” he said, referring to the Tether stablecoin backed by the US dollar.

A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value by pegging it to a reserve asset, which could be a fiat currency or other assets, such as gold.

Stablecoins currently account for about 3 to 4 per cent of overall remittances of Gulf-based workers, according to Lian, suggesting that these workers still mostly prefer to transfer money through banks and licensed operators.

Millions of people from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries have worked in the oil-rich Middle East for years. However, their job uncertainties have increased in recent months as the Iran war entangled other Gulf states.

Lian said a key attraction of the widely used USDT was that it commanded a higher value by about 4 to 5 per cent in markets such as India, compared with the official exchange rate for the US dollar, allowing recipients to get more value.

The prospect of sanctions related to the Iran war has raised fears about disruptions to the dollar-based monetary transfers through traditional modes, although there is no sign that Washington is planning to block legitimate remittances, according to Lian.

Several Gulf countries, such as the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, have introduced regulations in recent years to allow stablecoins in their financial systems.

Workers in the Middle East are increasingly turning to stablecoins for remittances, given that such transfers are faster than traditional banking systems, according to Lian.

“The shift is real, but incremental, and is concentrated among the more tech-comfortable, urban-linked segment of the diaspora rather than the broader labour corridors,” he said.

Raj Kapoor, president of the India Blockchain Alliance, said global banks had tightened their Gulf operations due to the Iran war, which had affected their treasury and other functions that underpinned remittance flows.

Stablecoins, particularly the USDT and USDC, have filled the gap for financial settlements in the region, according to Kapoor.

“The Iran war has functioned less as a cause and more as a powerful accelerant of a shift that was already structurally under way,” he added.

Ryan Kirkley, co-founder and co-CEO of Global Settlement Network, said the Iran war had caused disruption not only to energy supplies and dollar liquidity but also remittances.

Countries across South Asia and Southeast Asia are reliant on these monetary transfers, with India alone having received US$125 billion in remittances last year and Gulf nations contributing to a third of the figure, according to Kirkley.

Given their significance, compliance standards for stablecoins and tokenised payments should be enhanced and for migrant workers to have this option to send their money home amid the Iran war, Kirkley said.

“If a Gulf bank pulls back on dollar clearing or a UAE exchange house tightens onboarding because of secondary-sanctions exposure, the first thing to feel it is not the oil tanker, it is the construction worker in [the city of] Sharjah trying to send 2,000 UAE dirhams [US$545] home,” he said.

 

Source: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3353456/iran-war-pushes-asias-gulf-migrants-use-stablecoins-remittances

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
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Quantum computing threat looms over Asia’s financial systems: ‘we are not secure’

Quantum computing threat looms over Asia’s financial systems: ‘we are not secure’

Swathes of Asia’s financial systems are vulnerable to potential disruption from quantum computing technology, including those hosting secure transactions, industry executives have warned.

Only a handful of major economies in the region, such as China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, have embarked on strategies to safeguard their systems, but most financial institutions across the region are vulnerable to quantum attacks because they are ill prepared, experts say.

The threat looms even as digital wallets and real-time payment systems are widely being used and deeply integrated into the financial systems. Quantum computing is a new branch of processing which can solve complex problems within minutes or hours that might take a classical computer thousands of years to crack.

While it will allow scientists to test and discover new medicines speedily, build climate modelling systems and accelerate scientific research, the system also has the ability to break public-key cryptography or security systems of digital tokens such as bitcoin.

“Asia’s financial systems face an existential threat from quantum computing’s ability to break widely used public-key cryptographic protocols” which underpin digital signatures and enable secure communications, according to Anndy Lian, a Singapore-based intergovernmental blockchain adviser.

Once sufficiently powerful quantum computers emerge – expected within five to 10 years – they could attack stored financial data, forge digital identities and compromise interbank settlements, experts warn.

Such disruptions “could destabilise trust in digital finance”, Lian said.

“In Asean alone, where digital payment adoption is accelerating, the absence of quantum-safe infrastructure leaves trillions of transactions exposed,” he said. “Moreover, the interconnectedness of Asian financial markets means a breach in one jurisdiction could cascade regionally.”

The Asia-Pacific region is poised to become the fastest-growing market for quantum computing, driven by strong government support, significant investments and rapid digital transformation across key countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and India.

Yet regulatory frameworks lagged behind technological developments, with nations in the region lacking a coordinated strategy, Lian said.

Banks in Asia including HSBC, DBS Bank, OCBC and UOB had launched quantum computing initiatives addressing cybersecurity threats and exploring applications in areas such as trading, risk management and fraud detection, industry executives said.

The use of quantum computing across businesses and other applications is expected to become prevalent from the 2030s, according to Alexandra Beckstein, CEO of QAI Ventures, a global venture capital firm focused on quantum technology, which recently established its presence in Singapore.

Banks in the region were worried because passwords might not be safe any more, she said. “Everyone can enter the system, and this will, of course, tremendously damage the capital markets.”

Beckstein predicted that it would be possible to decrypt all the data currently stored in the early 2030s. “So every data you produce right now is potentially prone to threat, so we are not secure now, just because quantum is not happening yet,” she said.

A lot of the banks were currently implementing classical algorithms that would make it harder for a quantum computer to break encryption, she added.

Uneven safeguards

Other industry executives noted, however, that the implementation of security systems across Asia was uneven.

“Asia has bright spots where supervisors and industry are already experimenting with quantum-safe measures, yet region-wide readiness remains nascent,” said Raj Kapoor, founder and chairman of India Blockchain Alliance, noting that most institutions in Asia were only at the stage of building awareness.

According to Kapoor, Singapore is among the most well-prepared countries for the transition to quantum computing in the Asian region, while mainland China has also made significant progress in developing infrastructure. In India and Hong Kong, the momentum is building, but the preparedness is mixed.

But each major Asian market needed to set a clear timetable for developing a common framework to prevent a messy “big-bang switchover”, Kapoor said.

Experts have repeatedly urged the need for greater coordination of cyber policies in Asia, one of the fastest-growing internet markets which has also emerged as a global hotspot for cybercrime.

“Quantum computing will not immediately equip cybercriminals in Southeast Asia with quantum machines, as those remain years away from practical, widespread use. However, it fundamentally alters the threat landscape,” Lian said.

He warned that large-scale quantum computers would expose “vast troves of currently encrypted data”.

“Cybercriminals operating from the region may not wield quantum computers directly, but they will certainly exploit the fallout” by manipulating data decrypted by others, Lian said.

 

Source: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3330673/quantum-computing-threat-looms-over-asias-financial-systems-we-are-not-secure

 

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

Asia-Pacific leads boom in crypto transactions amid regulatory hurdles: report

Asia-Pacific leads boom in crypto transactions amid regulatory hurdles: report

The Asia-Pacific region has become the world’s fastest-growing hub for cryptocurrency transactions, with on-chain activity surging despite inconsistent oversight and varied pathways to adoption, according to a new report.

Analysts say the trend reflects not only diverse use cases – from remittances and savings to gaming and speculative trading – but also regulatory uncertainty across the region, which could limit long-term potential even as momentum builds.

The report, released on Wednesday by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, found that during the 12 months ending June 2025, Asia-Pacific had emerged as the fastest-growing region for on-chain crypto activity, with a 69 per cent year-over-year increase in value received.

Total crypto transaction volume in the region grew from US$1.4 trillion to US$2.36 trillion, driven by robust engagement across major markets including India, Vietnam and Pakistan.

Monthly on-chain value received grew from about US$81 billion in July 2022 to peak at US$244 billion in December 2024, a threefold increase over 30 months. Transaction volumes have since remained robust at above US$185 billion per month through mid-2025.

In contrast to North America, where cryptocurrency activity is largely driven by institutional investment, Asia-Pacific’s growth is fuelled by broader, more retail-oriented demand, according to Chengyi Ong, head of Asia-Pacific policy at Chainalysis.

The report cites Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, India and Vietnam as among the nations spearheading transaction growth in the Asia-Pacific, fuelled by a combination of supportive policies to use cases.

“Mature markets like Singapore and Hong Kong remained relatively stable in terms of on-chain value transferred,” Ong said.

In the top market India, the digital currency is meeting a large diaspora’s remittance needs while young adults have embraced crypto trading as supplementary income, the report says.

“India has a large and technologically savvy population where young students experiment with blockchain and coding, and it also has unmet financial needs for income, investments, and cross-border transfers,” Ong said. “These are conditions in which cryptocurrency can gain traction.”

In South Korea, the second-largest Asia-Pacific market, trading in crypto is becoming as common as trading in shares, while new rules like the 2024 Virtual Asset User Protection Act are reshaping activity on major domestic exchanges, according to the report.

Vietnam, in third, showed crypto as everyday infrastructure for remittances, gaming and savings rather than speculation, the report added, while Pakistan added a fourth archetype with a young, mobile-first population embracing cryptos for remittances and investments.

Anndy Lian, a Singapore-based intergovernmental blockchain adviser, noted that key contributors to crypto’s rapid growth included adoption in emerging markets such as India, Pakistan and Vietnam for practical use, such as remittances, to provide a financial tool to unbanked populations – people without their own bank accounts – in the region.

“High mobile penetration and internet expansion have democratised entry, enabling retail investors to engage with centralised exchanges and decentralised protocols amid economic volatility,” Lian said.

Institutional interest in the digital currency has also risen, fuelled by progressive hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong which offer clearer fintech ecosystems, according to Lian, while emerging economies such as Indonesia and the Philippines also use crypto to boost financial inclusion.

Cryptocurrency, which works as a decentralised digital currency using blockchain technology to securely record transactions on a shared, unchangeable digital ledger, is being seen by observers as a means to transparently send money to remote populations with little access to banking.

The region’s uneven approach to regulation of cryptos, however, hampers its potential use, experts warn.

“Regulatory concerns in Apac’s [the Asia-Pacific’s] crypto landscape are pronounced, arising from inconsistent and fragmented frameworks that amplify risks while stifling balanced growth,” Lian said.

While Singapore provides comprehensive licensing for virtual asset providers, India’s levy of a 30 per cent tax on cryptocurrency gains means investors and businesses face uncertainty and systemic risks of over-regulation, according to Lian.

Experts say India’s approach to cryptos stems from anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing, but the country would gain from broader regulation dealing with consumer protection, financial prudence and market conduct.

Lian noted that there were concerns among policymakers as the Asia-Pacific region had emerged as a hotspot for crypto scams and frauds globally.

“Broader issues include money-laundering vulnerabilities in less-regulated markets like the Philippines or Vietnam, where rapid growth exposes unbanked users to exploitation,” he said.

Crypto rules vary across the region, from rigorous oversight in Japan to light-touch regulation in Indonesia.

Lian warned, however, that the lack of uniformity risked regulatory arbitrage – exploiting differences or gaps in regulations across different jurisdictions – and hampered cross-border compliance,

He called on policymakers to address these issues to mitigate threats without curbing the region’s crypto potential, noting that policy coordination “is essential to streamline crypto transactions, reduce fragmentation, and harness the region’s growth potential sustainably”.

 

Source: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3326725/asia-pacific-leads-boom-crypto-transactions-amid-regulatory-hurdles-report

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j