Stablecoins in Action: Powering Real-World Use Cases in Real-Time Across Asia and Beyond
Global Fintech Institute facilitated a group of regulators attending the Wealth Management Institute (WMI) course to the Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN) Insights Forum as part of the Singapore FinTech Festival, where the session “Stablecoins in Action” explored how private blockchains and stablecoins are now driving real-world financial infrastructure across Asia and beyond.
With the support of Bernice Neo from GFTN, an ad-hoc session following the panel created space for deeper discussion between regulators and speakers on policy alignment, compliance standards, and regional deployment models.
A special thank-you to the insightful speakers:
Khibar Rassul (Axyim), Nick Mussallem (Ava Labs), Terry Kim (BDACS), Tianwei Liu (StraitsX), and Justin Kim (Avalanche) for sharing first-hand perspectives on stablecoin infrastructure, interoperability, and the future of compliance innovation.
Emerging Stablecoin Models
Three models are shaping the global landscape:
• Circle model – yield retained by issuer
• Agora model – yield distributed to merchants
• Wyoming model – yield directed to public services
Payment Infra in Practice
In Asia, Grab’s integration with 40,000+ merchants in Singapore demonstrates the potential of frictionless stablecoin adoption without requiring system changes on the merchant side.
Compliance and Trust
Fiscal and monetary implications of stablecoin growth were highlighted.
Private players emphasised governance, transparency, and auditability as critical to legitimacy.
Smart contract flows now include:
• Automated KYC/AML compliance
• Whitelisted wallet-to-wallet transfers
• Privacy-preserving audits with selective regulatory access
Infra Architecture Trends
The market is moving toward custom permissioned chains for higher assurance.
• Avalanche – restricted payment chains for Stripe, Alipay, GrabPay
• Toyota – private tokenisation networks for supply chain efficiency
Regional Insights
Compliance-by-design is emerging as the foundation for scalable digital money.
GFI will continue fostering cross-regional dialogue between regulators and industry actors, ensuring the next wave of fintech innovation is both compliant and globally interoperable.