Animoca’s Evan Auyang worked in finance and public transit before crypto—Why he thinks the blockchain should be more like a bus 

Evan Auyang would like to talk about buses.

The president of Animoca Brands has an odd resume for someone leading one of Hong Kong’s most prominent Web 3.0 startups: Finance, consulting and, importantly, a stint as the deputy managing director of the Kowloon Motor Bus Company, one of the city’s bus operators. 

“A bus lowers the cost for every single person going to the right destination,” Auyang excitedly told Fortune during an interview in mid-August. “It’s the most powerful thing that’s been created in transportation. You can deploy a bus anywhere. And you don’t have to have every single bus route be profitable.”

Auyang’s time as a bus executive explains much of why he joined a cryptocurrency company, why he pushed Animoca into a stablecoin venture, and his views on why the industry’s future looks more like the regulated and useful public transit sector. 

‘Not the next Tether’

On the same morning of Fortune’s conversation with Auyang, Anchorpoint—a joint venture between Standard Chartered, HKT, and Animoca—had begun the phased rollout of its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, and added that retail use could start by the end of the year.

“We’re not trying to be the next Tether,” Auyang said. “We’re trying to be one that says: we want to be the regulated rails, be there first, to enable this region of Greater China and the capital markets here to be on-chain.”

Animoca, Standard Chartered, and HKT announced Anchorpoint in February 2025; the joint venture was one of the first companies to apply for a stablecoin when the city opened up applications for its stablecoin licensing regime in August of that year. The regime is strict: Issuers must hold at least 25 million Hong Kong dollars ($3.2 million) in paid-up capital—money shareholders have actually put in—and back every coin, at all times, with reserves of safe, easy-to-sell assets like bonds that are held separately from the company’s own funds. 

In April, the HKMA cleared just two of 36 applicants: Anchorpoint and HSBC, the city’s largest bank.

Experts have been skeptical of whether any non-U.S. dollar stablecoin will be able to get traction among consumers and businesses, but a Hong Kong dollar-denominated stablecoin has a distinct advantage. The city’s currency has been pegged to the U.S. dollar since 1983—meaning an HKD stablecoin will maintain a stable value, yet sitting outside U.S. regulatory........

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