Blockchain & Digital Assets Weekly Briefing - Week 46
- danae317
- Nov 14
- 20 min read
Week ending 14th November 2025
This week’s edition captures a turning point in the digital-asset landscape. Kazakhstan pushes its national crypto reserve plan toward a billion-dollar goal with newly recovered assets, while MARA’s chief sounds a stark warning about the risks of relying on power-purchase agreements. Europe sees a historic milestone as the Czech National Bank adds Bitcoin to its balance sheet, and global payment giants Visa and Mastercard move stablecoin settlement from pilot to reality. Meanwhile, JPMorgan takes a decisive leap by bringing deposit tokens onto a public blockchain—an unmistakable signal that institutional adoption is accelerating on all fronts.
Kazakhstan expands its national crypto reserve strategy toward a $1B target using recovered digital assets.
"As long as you’re paying a PPA, you're a slave to an energy generator": MARA’s CEO's warning.
Historic first: Czech National bank adds Bitcoin, signalling Europe’s entry into the crypto era.
Visa and Mastercard take stablecoin payouts from theory to practice.
JPMorgan steps into the open: Wall Street giant brings deposit tokens to a public blockchain.
Beyond the Brief
Kazakhstan expands its national crypto reserve strategy toward a $1B target using recovered digital assets
Kazakhstan is moving to scale up its recently launched national crypto reserve strategy, aiming to expand the size of the Alem Crypto Fund to between $500 million and $1 billion, according to statements from the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK). The expansion will draw from crypto-assets seized and repatriated during law enforcement investigations, according to a Bloomberg report.
This represents a significant shift in how Kazakhstan integrates digital assets into state financial instruments. Rather than directly increasing holdings of volatile tokens, the NBK indicated that the expanded reserve will primarily invest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and equity stakes in companies working within the broader digital-asset ecosystem. The bank stated it intends to avoid direct speculative exposure to cryptocurrencies.
The Alem Crypto Fund, initially launched by the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development and managed under the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), began by acquiring BNB (Binance Coin) in collaboration with Binance Kazakhstan. That initial investment was framed as a long-term infrastructure play linked to blockchain participation and network governance.
The new phase, however, goes beyond a single-asset positioning. The potential infusion of up to $1 billion in capital indicates that Kazakhstan is now treating digital-asset exposure as a strategic reserve, comparable to how nations historically use gold, foreign currency, or sovereign wealth funds to support national financial resilience.
Kazakhstan has spent the past several years tightening oversight of its digital-asset sector, increasing legal clarity, and closing unauthorized exchanges. The Alem Crypto Fund sits alongside other initiatives including the KZTE stablecoin pilot and the CryptoCity regulatory sandbox.
The move toward a state-level crypto reserve funded partly through recovered assets places Kazakhstan among a small number of governments incorporating digital-asset exposure into national financial strategy in a structured, institutional way.
"As long as you’re paying a PPA, you're a slave to an energy generator": MARA’s CEO's warning
About Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA)
MARA is a vertically integrated digital energy and infrastructure company that leverages high-intensity computing, such as Bitcoin mining, to monetize excess energy and optimize power management. The company focuses on two strategic priorities: transitioning toward low-cost energy with efficient capital deployment, and building a full suite of solutions for data centers and edge inference, including energy management and load balancing.
With 18 digital compute sites across 4 continents and 1.8 GW of flexible compute capacity, MARA is one of the largest vertically integrated, dispatchable digital-compute companies globally.
“A Slave to the Generator”: Why Bitcoin Miners Must Own Their Energy to Survive
In a recent interview, Fred Thiel, CEO of MARA, delivered a stark assessment of the bitcoin-mining industry’s trajectory — one in which only miners with tight control over energy costs or new business models will thrive.
“As long as you’re paying a PPA, you’re a slave to an electricity generator.” — Fred Thiel CoinDesk
Industry Pressure & Energy Costs
Thiel framed today’s mining industry as a zero-sum game. As hashrate and network difficulty climb, margins tighten, and electricity costs become the single most decisive factor in profitability. Miners relying on standard power-purchase agreements (PPAs) are at the mercy of utilities and fluctuating rates — a vulnerability Thiel calls “being a slave to the generator.”
Strategic Shift: Owning Energy & Expanding Business Models
To deal with this margin squeeze, MARA is pivoting on two fronts:
Energy control and vertical integration. By owning or directly partnering in power-generation assets, MARA can stabilize input costs and avoid exposure to volatile grid pricing. Thiel has long cautioned that “by 2028, you’ll either be a power generator, be owned by one, or be partnered with one.”
Diversification beyond Bitcoin. MARA is moving into high-performance computing (HPC) and AI-oriented infrastructure, building on its data-center expertise to create additional revenue streams and reduce dependence on block rewards.
By combining these levers, MARA seeks to position itself among the lower-cost miners (the “lower quartile” of production cost) — a status Thiel claims is vital for survival.
Illustrating the Energy Ownership Strategy
MARA and MPLX LP have signed a letter of intent for the development of integrated power-generation facilities and data-centre campuses in West Texas. Under this arrangement, MPLX will supply natural gas from its Delaware Basin processing plants, and MARA will build — and own — multiple gas-fired electricity generation and data-centre sites, initially at around 400 MW capacity across three sites with potential expansion to 1.5 GW. MARA’s CEO states the collaboration allows “leverag[ing] lower-cost local natural gas resources … build the foundation for high-performance, efficient data-centre campuses.” This initiative directly supports the company’s goal of moving away from external PPAs and toward energy self-sufficiency.
" Whether you're talking internationally to people in Saudi, in France, Germany, Africa, [...] it's owning the electrons which is critical." Fred Thiel, MARA Holdings
Energy as National Security & Strategic Resource
Thiel repeatedly emphasises that energy is not merely an input cost—it is a strategic resource and national security asset. He has warned that mining firms must be an energy company, partner with one or they will be taken over by one.
Speaking with Bloomberg on 14 November 2025, American Bitcoin co-founder Eric Trump stressed how energy and digital infrastructure shape national power, saying:
"The lower your energy costs are for your production of energy, the higher your GDP costs are. We have to win the war on cryptocurrencies, we have to win the war on AI, we have to win these for national security".
This holds especially true outside the U.S., where state-backed utilities or national energy firms may dominate the infrastructure. For miners, aligning with governments or global energy players (for example, through partnerships with energy-rich sovereigns) becomes a competitive advantage—rather than merely sourcing cheap tariff power.
In 2025, MARA Holdings deepened that strategy by entering a landmark partnership with EDF Pulse Ventures, the venture arm of France’s EDF Group, to invest in Exaion, EDF’s high-performance-computing and secure-cloud subsidiary. Under the agreement, MARA acquired a 64 % stake in Exaion, with an option to increase ownership to 75 % by 2027.
This partnership expands MARA’s footprint into Europe’s AI and HPC sector, combining its energy-integration expertise with Exaion’s digital-infrastructure and data-sovereignty capabilities. Because EDF is majority state-owned by the French government, the collaboration positions MARA within a trusted European framework and signals its ability to work under local sovereignty requirements while scaling global infrastructure. It also illustrates Thiel’s broader thesis that energy, data governance, and compute are converging into a single strategic asset class.
2025: The Transition Year
For MARA, 2025 marks the company’s strategic pivot — from a cycle of relentless expansion to a focus on sustainable, integrated profitability. In prior years, the model centered on “chasing hash”: deploying ASIC rigs as fast as possible to capture network share. Now, MARA is deliberately shifting toward owning energy assets, disciplined capital deployment, and high-efficiency compute utilization.
This transition reflects a broader truth Thiel has articulated: the next decade of mining will not be won by scale alone, but by control of cost, latency, and energy. With partnerships such as MPLX in Texas and EDF/Exaion in France, MARA is laying the groundwork for a vertically integrated, global compute infrastructure that connects energy, Bitcoin, and AI.
He adds that layering “sovereign cloud, private cloud and air-gap” services on top of this infrastructure — systems where end-users control their data and AI models — positions MARA’s future as a blend of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS).
Why Sovereign Cloud Matters — and Who It’s For
Fred Thiel’s long-term vision extends far beyond mining. When he speaks of sovereign cloud, private cloud, and air-gap infrastructure, he’s referring to a new phase where control over compute and data becomes as strategic as control over energy. In this model, nations and corporations demand that their sensitive data, AI models, and digital processes remain under their own legal and physical control, rather than hosted on foreign servers. This is what “sovereign cloud” means — a computing environment that ensures data residency, compliance, and jurisdictional autonomy.
The issue is not theoretical. In Europe, policymakers have spent years building frameworks like Gaia-X, a continental effort to create a federated European cloud ecosystem independent of U.S. hyperscalers such as AWS, Microsoft, or Google Cloud. France has gone a step further with Bleu, a joint venture between Orange and Capgemini using Microsoft technology but operated entirely under French law, ensuring that data stored there cannot be accessed by U.S. authorities under the CLOUD Act. These projects reflect a growing conviction: digital sovereignty — the ability to decide where and under whose law data lives — is a matter of national security.
That reality shapes how a company like MARA Holdings fits into the global landscape. As an American company, MARA would not likely be trusted to operate sovereign clouds for foreign governments. European regulators, for instance, would view a U.S. operator as subject to American legal reach. However, Thiel’s philosophy — “you either are an energy company, partner with one, or they’ll take over your business” — translates neatly here: to provide sovereign digital infrastructure abroad, MARA would need local partnerships with national energy firms, telecoms, or state-backed operators that control jurisdiction and compliance.
Domestically, however, the picture looks different. The United States is increasingly aware that compute, energy, and national security are converging. Federal and state agencies are seeking domestically owned, energy-efficient data centers to support AI, blockchain, and critical digital workloads without relying on foreign or purely commercial hyperscalers. In that context, MARA’s energy-anchored, dispatchable compute campuses could become the backbone for a U.S. sovereign digital infrastructure — secure, low-latency facilities designed to host sensitive workloads within American borders.
In essence, Thiel’s sovereign-cloud strategy is not about exporting U.S. control; it’s about building the foundational layer of trusted, localized digital energy infrastructure that governments and enterprises — whether in the U.S. or allied nations — can operate within their own legal jurisdictions. MARA’s evolution from miner to infrastructure provider positions it at the intersection of energy sovereignty, data sovereignty, and digital-industrial policy — the frontier where compute becomes a tool of geopolitical independence as much as economic productivity.
A further signal of the shifting terrain is seen with Bitfarms Ltd., one of the larger public bitcoin-miners, which announced on Thursday that it will wind down its bitcoin-mining operations over the next two years and shift focus toward AI and high-performance-computing/data-centre infrastructure. The Canadian-based company stated that its Washington state site will be converted to AI workloads, reflecting the broader pressure on miners to re-deploy assets, control costs and pivot away from bitcoin-only methods. Its move underscores why cost of power, compute-efficiency and diversification are no longer optional but essential. The press release adds that:
"The conversion of just our Washington site to GPU-as-a-Service could potentially produce more net operating income than we have ever generated with Bitcoin mining"
What Happens If Large Miners Shut Down Bitcoin Mining?A wave of major miners exiting Bitcoin mining — such as Bitfarms’ November 2025 announcement that it will wind down mining operations to pivot into AI and data-center services — raises a crucial question: what happens to the Bitcoin network if the big players walk away? First, Bitcoin is designed to adapt. If major miners deactivate ASIC fleets, the network’s total hashrate drops, and Bitcoin’s difficulty automatically adjusts downward to restore the target 10-minute block time. This mechanism has been tested before: after China’s historic mining ban in 2021, the network lost over 50% of its total hashrate — yet remained secure and fully operational. In such a scenario, remaining miners would temporarily become much more profitable, because each unit of energy or hardware would produce more Bitcoin at a lower cost. This would make older-generation ASICs viable again for a time. But this equilibrium never lasts. If mining becomes highly profitable due to falling difficulty, multiple actors rapidly fill the gap:
This means the exit of U.S.-listed miners could simply shift power in the mining ecosystem to ASIC manufacturers and state-backed miners in low-cost energy regions. It’s also important to understand that the shift of large miners to AI/HPC doesn't imply a shared equipment pool: Key constraints:
These equipment types are not interchangeable. An AI data center cannot repurpose its GPUs to mine Bitcoin efficiently, and ASICs cannot run AI inference or training workloads. Therefore, even in a “worst-case” scenario of mass miner exits, the rebalancing forces of:
Rather than collapsing, the mining landscape would reorganize, redistributing power among the remaining participants. |
Fred Thiel’s message is blunt: Bitcoin mining is becoming an energy business first, a compute business second. The miners who control their energy and infrastructure — or build symbiotic partnerships with those who do — will define the next chapter of digital-asset production.
The age of renting power from the grid is ending. The future belongs to those who own the energy, master latency and cost, and deliver sovereign digital infrastructure.
Historic first: Czech National bank adds Bitcoin, signalling Europe’s entry into the crypto era
The Czech National Bank (CNB) has made history as Europe’s first central bank to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet, confirming a US $1 million crypto purchase on November 13, 2025 according to a Reuters report.
The holdings — composed primarily of Bitcoin, alongside a U.S.-dollar-backed stablecoin and a tokenised deposit — form part of a controlled experiment to test the operational, technical, and compliance frameworks for managing digital assets. The CNB stressed that the exposure is separate from its foreign-exchange reserves and will remain limited during the two-to-three-year trial.
A Broader Institutional Context
Governor Aleš Michl has been one of Europe’s most outspoken monetary leaders on digital assets. Earlier in 2025, he floated the idea of allocating billions of euros in Bitcoin, a statement that drew both curiosity and criticism.
The CNB had already demonstrated a growing interest in the sector through its U.S. equity portfolio, which includes roughly US $18 million worth of Coinbase Global shares.
Governor Michl framed these steps as part of a broader plan to ensure the bank is prepared for an era in which bonds, deposits, and other instruments may be issued and settled on blockchain infrastructure.
A Clear Break from ECB Guidance
The CNB’s decision stands in direct contrast to the European Central Bank’s position, which has repeatedly stated that Bitcoin “has no place in central-bank reserves” due to liquidity, safety, and soundness concerns.
By proceeding with this purchase, the CNB has effectively departed from ECB guidance, asserting its autonomy to explore digital-asset management despite the Czech Republic’s close financial ties to the eurozone. This move highlights a growing divergence in how European monetary institutions view digital assets — between cautious observation and limited, hands-on experimentation.
A Parallel Shift: Luxembourg’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Joins the Trend
This central-bank experiment coincides with a separate but significant policy development elsewhere in Europe. As reported in our recent piece (click here to read), the Intergenerational Sovereign Wealth Fund (FSIL) has allocated 1 % of its portfolio to Bitcoin, marking the first such move by an EU sovereign wealth fund.
Luxembourg’s decision, made under a modernised investment framework approved in mid-2025, introduces crypto exposure via regulated Bitcoin ETFs, balancing innovation with fiscal prudence.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring France, lawmakers have proposed the creation of a national Bitcoin reserve – a resolution before the French National Assembly would establish a strategic crypto-reserve and block the digital-euro project, signaling a shift toward state-level crypto experimentation.
Together, the CNB’s pilot and Luxembourg’s allocation suggest a gradual but visible governmental turn toward treating Bitcoin as a legitimate — albeit volatile — alternative asset class.
Critical Observations
Regulatory friction: The CNB’s divergence from ECB guidance underscores rising internal debate within European institutions over digital-asset legitimacy.
Regional context: With Luxembourg’s sovereign wealth fund adding Bitcoin exposure, Europe’s financial establishment is showing early signs of strategic diversification — cautiously but unmistakably.
While neither the CNB’s experiment nor Luxembourg’s ETF allocation signals an immediate monetary revolution, both steps indicate an incremental legitimisation of crypto assets within Europe’s institutional architecture.
For investors, this signals that digital assets are no longer confined to speculative markets — they are entering policy discourse and public-finance experimentation. The European debate is shifting from if to how crypto can coexist with traditional finance — and both Prague and Luxembourg are quietly leading that conversation.
Visa and Mastercard take stablecoin payouts from theory to practice
In a clear sign of their commitment to evolving payment infrastructures, two of the world’s biggest payment networks—Visa and Mastercard —have rolled out pilot programmes enabling payouts directly to stablecoin wallets. The move reflects both opportunity and risk as they navigate the shifting landscape of digital assets and cross-border payments.
Visa’s Pilot: Direct Payouts in USD-Stablecoins
Visa announced on November 12, 2025 a pilot under its Visa Direct service that allows US platforms and businesses to fund payouts in fiat currency while enabling recipients to select delivery in USD-backed stablecoins (for example, USDC) directly into stablecoin wallets.
The pilot is targeted at creators, freelancers and gig-workers and is designed to provide faster access to funds and a stable store of value—especially in jurisdictions with limited banking infrastructure or currency volatility. According to the announcement, the rollout currently involves select partners and a broader deployment is planned for the second half of 2026.
Key Takeaways from Visa Direct’s Stablecoin Payout Pilot:
Seamless access: Individuals such as consumers, freelancers, and content creators will be able to receive stablecoin payouts almost instantly, significantly reducing waiting times compared to traditional transfers.
Global usability: Stablecoins offer a practical option for people in underbanked markets or regions without access to U.S. dollar bank accounts, enabling broader participation in the digital economy.
Greater transparency: Each payment is recorded on the blockchain, ensuring permanent traceability that enhances auditability, compliance oversight, and confirmation of receipt.
Gradual expansion: The program begins with a limited group of partners, with a wider rollout anticipated in the second half of 2026 as regulatory clarity improves and customer interest continues to build.
In September 2025, Visa Direct introduced a stablecoin pre-funding pilot, which allowed businesses to use stablecoins instead of fiat to pre-fund their Visa Direct accounts—a back-end treasury innovation that streamlined settlement processes. The newly announced pilot builds on that step by extending stablecoin usage to end recipients, effectively putting digital dollars directly into users’ wallets.
Mastercard’s Move: Expanding End-points to Stablecoin Wallets
Shortly after Visa’s announcement, Mastercard, in partnership with Thunes, announced at the Singapore Fintech festival 2025 a program that expands its “Mastercard Move” network to include payouts directly into stablecoin wallets.
Under this collaboration, banks and payment-service providers will be able to offer real-time transfers to stablecoin wallets via Thunes’ Direct Global Network—adding to the existing endpoints of cards, bank accounts and cash. The benefits emphasised include 24/7 availability, faster settlement and further financial-inclusion potential in underserved markets; however, mainstream adoption will require interoperability among wallets, regulatory clarity, and the development of sustainable business models within existing payment ecosystems.
“With Mastercard Move, we already enable transfers in 150 currencies to over 10 billion endpoints—including accounts, cards, and cash. With this collaboration we’re adding stablecoin wallets to that mix." said Pratik Khowala, Global Head of Transfer Solutions at Mastercard
JPMorgan steps into the open: Wall Street giant brings deposit tokens to a public blockchain
In a move that marks a major shift in institutional blockchain strategy, JPMorgan Chase has begun rolling out its new deposit token, “JPM D,” on a public blockchain network — signaling that even the world’s largest bank now sees open infrastructure as essential for the future of digital money.
This evolution comes after years of developing JPM Coin, an internal digital token used for interbank settlements within the bank’s private Onyx network. The new step takes that concept beyond JPMorgan’s walls, placing it on one of Ethereum's L2, Base, a public blockchain developed by Coinbase. While still limited to institutional clients, this expansion opens the door to broader interoperability, faster 24/7 settlement, and potentially, a future where major banks transact directly over shared, public rails.
According to JPMorgan’s own documentation, deposit tokens are “intended to be transferable among the issuing bank’s direct customers and their eligible customers”. More concretely, JPMorgan’s blockchain unit, Kinexys, is working with Asia’s DBS Bank to develop a framework for “inter-bank tokenised deposit transfers across multiple blockchains” — the aim being that a JPMorgan institutional client could pay a DBS institutional client using JPM D on Base, and the recipient would be able to exchange or redeem for equivalent value via DBS Token Services.
From Private Experiment to Public Network
When JPM Coin debuted in 2019, it was heralded as the first sign that traditional finance could embrace blockchain. But its use remained confined to JPMorgan’s own clients and infrastructure — a closed system that replicated some benefits of blockchain without embracing its open nature.
The deposit token initiative changes that. It represents a digital claim on bank deposits, functioning as an electronic version of money held in JPMorgan accounts. What sets it apart is its deployment on a public network, meaning transactions can be verified and settled transparently, using the same underlying technology that powers much of the broader digital asset ecosystem.
This represents more than a technical shift — it’s a strategic admission that public blockchains may now meet the security, compliance, and scalability standards once thought only achievable through private systems.
Earlier Public-Blockchain Activity — and Why It Matters
It’s important to note that while this deposit token rollout is novel, JPMorgan has already taken earlier steps into public-chain territory. In May 2025, the bank reportedly completed what is described as its “first public-blockchain transaction involving tokenised U.S. Treasuries,” using its blockchain division (Kinexys) along with token issuer Ondo Finance and Chainlink’s cross-chain infrastructure.
Aligning with the Broader “Open Network” Movement
The decision echoes sentiments voiced just weeks earlier at the Federal Reserve’s Payment Innovation Conference.
Alesia Haas, Coinbase CFO argued that “we are building these as open standards… sharing them with the world for others to build because interoperability and adoption will grow to create the most consumer and business benefit.”
They emphasized that open networks can lower costs and broaden financial inclusion — ideas that now appear to be finding traction even among the largest incumbents.
Similarly, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood praised the momentum behind “programmability, interoperability, and open source,” noting that these forces are driving the next wave of productivity gains through blockchain and artificial intelligence.
JPMorgan’s public-chain experiment, then, isn’t an isolated event — it’s part of a broader structural shift as finance begins to converge with the open-source ethos long championed by the tech sector.
A Broader Digital Asset Strategy
The move comes amid clear signs that JPMorgan is deepening its involvement in the broader digital asset ecosystem.
According to the bank’s latest 13F-HR filing with the U.S. SEC (November 7, 2025), JPMorgan held approximately 5.284 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) — worth about $343 million at quarter-end prices. This represents a 64% increase from the previous quarter, when the bank owned around 3.22 million shares valued at roughly $302–303 million. In other words, JPMorgan added roughly 2.07 million shares of IBIT during Q3 2025, a strong indication of growing institutional exposure to regulated Bitcoin investment products.
Why It Matters
This development highlights a broader industry trend: the gradual convergence between traditional banking and decentralized infrastructure. Instead of opposing public blockchain systems, major financial institutions are beginning to build on top of them, bringing regulatory credibility and institutional scale to an ecosystem once dismissed as fringe.
JPMorgan’s decision stands as a powerful signal: the walls between private finance and public blockchain are finally beginning to come down.
Beyond the Brief
Hong Kong’s Record HK$10 Billion Digital Green Bond Marks First Use of Tokenised Central Bank Money
When Hong Kong’s government announced this week that it had priced HK$10 billion (US$1.3 billion) in digital green bonds — the largest tokenised bond sale to date — headlines quickly called it a world first. The South China Morning Post described it as the first time a government bond issuance allowed settlement using tokenised central bank money.
At first glance, this might sound like another incremental blockchain experiment. In reality, the transaction marks a meaningful — though still partial — evolution in how sovereign debt could be issued, traded, and settled in the future.
What really changed this time
Hong Kong has been running digital bond pilots since 2023. The difference this time isn’t simply scale, but the way money itself was used in settlement.
In earlier rounds, the bonds were “digitally native” — created directly on a blockchain — but investors still paid through traditional banking systems. The blockchain recorded the bond, but not the cash.
This new issuance couples both legs of the transaction — digital bonds and digital cash — on the same distributed ledger. Buyers could settle using tokenised central bank money (CBM), such as the HKMA’s prototype e-HKD or the People’s Bank of China’s e-CNY. That’s a significant distinction: it means the cash leg of the transaction is backed 1:1 by a central bank, not by a private issuer or a commercial bank account.
Why tokenised central bank money matters
In conventional bond markets, payments and bond transfers occur in separate systems and often on different timelines. That creates counterparty risk — one party could deliver the cash or the bond late, or fail entirely.
With tokenised CBM, settlement becomes atomic, meaning both the bond (“delivery”) and the cash (“payment”) move simultaneously on the same ledger. Either both settle instantly, or neither does. This “delivery versus payment” (DvP) model eliminates settlement risk and can reduce the need for intermediaries, reconciliation, and manual clearing.
For issuers and investors, the payoff is faster settlement, lower transaction costs, and potentially lower capital requirements tied to settlement risk.
Investor demand and structure
The market reception was emphatic: according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), total subscriptions exceeded HK$130 billion, roughly 13 times the amount offered. Demand came from banks, insurers, and asset managers across multiple jurisdictions.
The bonds were issued in four currencies — Hong Kong dollars, renminbi, US dollars, and euros — under the government’s Sustainable Bond Programme. The inclusion of a five-year RMB tranche expanded maturities beyond earlier one-year pilots, showing investors are willing to hold tokenised debt over longer periods.
Each tranche qualifies as a green bond, meaning proceeds are earmarked for verified environmental projects such as renewable energy or sustainable infrastructure. Independent reviews ensure compliance with ICMA’s Green Bond Principles.
Standards and interoperability
Beyond the money and technology, the HKMA’s initiative also advances market plumbing. The issuance adopted:
Digital Token Identifiers (DTIs) compliant with ISO 24165,
International Capital Market Association’s Bond Data Taxonomy,
and a ledger setup designed to link with both traditional central securities depositories and emerging digital asset networks.
This may sound technical, but it’s what allows digital securities to talk to legacy infrastructure — a necessary step toward real institutional adoption.
Why this is still a cautious step forward
The enthusiasm is justified, but perspective matters. Earlier digital green bond issuances in 2023 and 2024 (around HK$6 billion combined) proved that tokenised bonds could be issued and traded. The 2025 edition goes further — integrating tokenised money and expanding in size — but it remains a government-led pilot, not yet a market standard.
Some limitations are clear:
Optionality: Settlement in tokenised CBM was available, not mandatory. It remains unclear how many investors actually used it.
Secondary trading: While issuance is digital, the secondary market — coupon payments, transfers, redemptions — still needs to demonstrate the same on-chain efficiency.
Regulatory reach: Other jurisdictions must recognise or integrate similar systems for cross-border liquidity to materialise.
In short, the bond proves what’s possible, not yet what’s scalable.
WHAT WE ARE READING (OR WATCHING)
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The Stablecoin Standard
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Governance Watch
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The Nakamoto Engine
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The Miner File
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On the Launchpad
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The Tokenized Economy
Hong Kong prices world's first government bonds with tokenised settlement
Beyond the Chain
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This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Please do your own research or consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.
