Japan DEX

China stablec

2026-10-08 22:35:00

China’s P2P stablecoin wallets jump 43x as South Korea leads East Asia’s crypto economy

Chainalysis data points to a sharp rise in peer-to-peer stablecoin activity in China even as crypto restrictions remain in place, while South Korea has emerged as East Asia’s largest crypto economy at $449.1 billion. The report says unique wallets sending P2P stablecoin transfers in China expanded 43-fold from the first quarter of 2024 to the second quarter of 2026, with $104.1 billion moved across 18.1 million transfers during the July 2025 to June 2026 reporting period. Stablecoin holdings in China turned over 33.2 times annually, far above the global average of 9.3. Elsewhere in the region, South Korean exchanges posted a 78% drop in operating profit in the first half of 2026 even as the country’s crypto activity grew 12.3% year over year. Hong Kong reiterated that it plans to submit a broader digital-asset licensing amendment bill before the end of 2026, while Japan saw DEX activity rise more than 200% since 2022. Singapore also featured prominently, with Standard Chartered planning institutional crypto custody, Independent Reserve adding cross-border payment tools and derivatives access through ReserveX, and Payward partnering with Singapore Gulf Bank on around-the-clock institutional settlement.

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Chainalysis

2026-10-06 08:34:23

Chainalysis says mainland China’s P2P stablecoin wallets jumped 43x in two years despite crypto ban

Chainalysis’ annual East Asia crypto report points to a region moving in different directions under very different regulatory setups. From July 2025 to June 2026, East Asia’s overall crypto economy shrank slightly, but the decline was uneven. South Korea remained the largest market at $449.1 billion, driven by retail trading and heavy interest in AI-linked tokens. Japan saw stronger decentralized exchange activity, while Hong Kong deepened its role as an institutional hub, with regulated service platforms taking 16% of service inflows and cumulative net B2B inflows reaching $17.4 billion by mid-2026. The report’s most closely watched finding concerns mainland China. Chainalysis estimates the market there reached at least $176.3 billion during the 2026 period, even with long-standing official restrictions still in place. Rather than disappearing, activity appears to have shifted toward wallet-to-wallet stablecoin transfers. The firm said the number of unique wallets sending P2P stablecoin transactions rose 43-fold from the first quarter of 2024 to the second quarter of 2026. It also found self-custodied stablecoins in mainland China turned over 33.2 times per year, more than triple the global average of 9.3, a pattern the report says looks more like an active payments channel than a store-of-value use case.

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