Evan Auyang's path to running one of Hong Kong's most prominent crypto firms ran through a bus depot. Before joining Animoca Brands, the company's president spent years as deputy managing director of Kowloon Motor Bus, one of the city's public transit operators, according to a Fortune interview with Auyang by Nicholas Gordon. Auyang says that experience, not his earlier stints in banking and consulting, shapes how he now thinks about stablecoins.
"A bus lowers the cost for every single person going to the right destination," Auyang told Fortune, describing transit as a model for what he wants a regulated digital currency to become: a low-cost public utility rather than a speculative asset.
A regulated rail, not the next Tether
That philosophy underpins Anchorpoint, a joint venture between Animoca, Standard Chartered, and HKT that began a phased rollout of a Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin this year, with retail availability expected by year-end. Hong Kong's monetary authority approved only two of 36 stablecoin license applicants in April — Anchorpoint and HSBC — under rules that require issuers to hold at least HK$25 million in paid-up capital and back every coin with fully segregated, liquid reserves.
"We're not trying to be the next Tether," Auyang said of the venture, positioning it instead as compliant infrastructure for Greater China's capital markets. Because the Hong Kong dollar has been pegged to the U.S. dollar since 1983, a stablecoin denominated in it can offer dollar-like stability while sitting outside direct U.S. regulatory reach — a distinction Auyang argues gives it a real edge over the dozens of dollar-pegged tokens already on the market.
Auyang framed the partnership with established financial institutions as a deliberate check on crypto's more freewheeling instincts. "We need adults in the room," he said. "So we built a team of adults."
From gaming bets to AI, with a Nasdaq listing on hold
The stablecoin push marks a shift for a firm that built its reputation as one of Web3's most aggressive investors, backing projects including Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis and virtual-world platform The Sandbox during crypto's 2021 boom, when Animoca was valued near $5.9 billion. That business cooled sharply as the market turned, with bookings falling roughly 30% between 2022 and 2023. Animoca has more recently pushed into AI agents through a product called Minds, while continuing to work through a backlog of delayed audited financial statements dating back to a 2020 delisting from the Australian Securities Exchange.
Plans for a Nasdaq listing via a reverse merger with Currenc Group, which Auyang had defended as a source of capital and discipline for the company, were put on hold days after his conversation with Fortune. Animoca said on Sept. 22 that it was suspending merger talks following a review of closing timelines and market conditions, while maintaining it remains committed to eventually relisting on a major exchange.
Auyang was notably blunt about the excesses of the industry he works in, criticizing token listings that reward founders with capital "you're not supposed to do anything with, to buy Ferraris with," and describing prediction markets — currently crypto's fastest-growing product category — as "very much gambling." It's a striking contrast for an executive whose case for stablecoins rests on the idea that digital currency should behave less like a casino chip and more like a bus fare: cheap, dependable, and available to everyone, including the roughly 1.3 billion people worldwide who remain unbanked.