China’s P2P stablecoin wallets surge 43x, Korea’s $450B crypto economy: Asia Express
Despite ongoing bans, China has seen a big surge in peer-to-peer stablecoin use. New figures show South Korea’s $450B crypto economy is the largest in East Asia.
China has witnessed a remarkable surge in peer-to-peer (P2P) stablecoin usage, with the number of unique wallets conducting P2P stablecoin transactions increasing 43-fold between 2024 Q1 and 2026 Q2, according to Chainalysis. In 2026, China's crypto economy was valued at a minimum of $176 billion, with domestic P2P activity accounting for 59.1% of total transactions, up from 3.5 times its share in 2025.
In South Korea, crypto economy activity grew 12.3% from the previous year, reaching $449.1 billion. Retail traders favored AI-linked tokens, but domestic exchanges saw operating profits drop 78% as trading volumes, valuations, and customer deposits declined. The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit reported a 44% decrease in daily trading volumes at domestic virtual asset exchanges, a 33% drop in market capitalization, and a 35% decline in won-denominated deposits.
South Korean tokenization platform Securitize partnered with LG CNS to develop tokenized assets and digital infrastructure for South Korean financial institutions. Meanwhile, Standard Chartered plans to launch digital asset custody services in Singapore, catering to institutional clients. Independent Reserve, a Singapore-licensed crypto exchange, added cross-border payment tools to facilitate fiat and stablecoin payouts to over 20 currencies.
Hong Kong plans to introduce licensing regimes for digital asset activities by year-end, accounting for 16% of institutional service inflows in Chainalysis's report. Japan's decentralized exchanges account for nearly 35% of service activity, with 65.7% of DEX swaps between $10 and $1,000. Japan has added Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange, to its sanctions list.
India's CBI arrested four individuals in an international tech-support fraud scheme targeting US nationals.
Written by urgent.news from Cointelegraph's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
