America's crypto narrative has permeated every crevice of traditional finance, with players competing to form alliances and grab a share of the pie—what about Taiwan?
(Prior context: “Wen Hongjun’s Stablecoin New Finance - 19”: U.S.-U.K. Joint Statement! The Digital Revival of Eurodollar 2.0)
(Context: “Wen Hongjun’s Stablecoin New Finance - 18”: OUSD Free Competition vs. Bank Deposit Tokens Upholding Their Base — The Full-Scale Clash Between New and Old Forces)
The crypto narrative has been taken over by traditional finance; the second half of 2026 will be a "coalition brawl."
First, look at a table compiled by Tiger Research, showing the dominant market narratives for each month from January to December 2025:
- January AI Agents (ai16z, Virtuals)
- February Memecoins (Trump Coin, Melania Coin)
- March InfoFi (Kaito, Cookie3)
- April RWA (BlackRock, Fidelity)
- May DAT (Strategy, Bitmine)
- June stock tokenization (Robinhood, xStocks)
- July stablecoins (Tether, Circle)
- August Launchpad (Kaito, Buidlpad)
- September PerpDEX (Hyperliquid, Aster)
- October x402 (Coinbase)
- November Privacy (Zcash)
- December prediction markets (Polymarket, Kalshi)
Twelve narratives, one changed each month, bustling like a revolving lantern.
But the key question is: A year later, which ones still have momentum and are still actively developing?
🔰 The answer is clear—only three remain: “stock tokenization, stablecoins, prediction markets”.
One of the three survivors has a common trait.
Looking again at these three surviving narratives, you’ll notice one thing: they are all products of “traditional finance entry strategies.”
- Stock tokenization is backed by existing market infrastructure such as Robinhood, Nasdaq, and DTCC.
- Stablecoins are backed by Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Stripe, and major banks.
- Prediction markets, backed by Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated exchange, and genuine investment from ICE (parent company of the New York Stock Exchange).
Looking at the dead ones in reverse: Memecoin, InfoFi, Launchpad, PerpDEX — all are purely crypto-native self-indulgent niches.
The conclusion is somewhat harsh: the entire cryptocurrency narrative has been officially taken over by traditional finance in 2025.
Who is the driving force?
The Trump administration’s shift in stance, the GENIUS Act, has provided a legal pathway for stablecoins, and now the CLARITY Act (Digital Asset Market Structure Act)—currently sitting on the Senate’s agenda—is being prioritized by the White House. However, it requires 60 votes, including support from at least seven Democratic senators, and August recess is the final window. Whether it passes remains uncertain, but the direction is clear: Washington is gradually integrating digital assets into the traditional financial regulatory framework.
The narrative experiments that crypto-native players ran for a decade, and which were ultimately proven to be scalable, were all taken over by people in high-end suits.
II. In the second half of 2026, Financial SpongeBob introduces three new narratives.
The three above (stock tokenization, stablecoins, prediction markets) will undoubtedly continue to thrive through 2026.
But Patrick needs to add three new narratives that I believe will truly gain momentum in the second half of this year:
1️⃣ Deposit Tokens (Commercial Banking Alliance): Banks have finally realized that instead of being bypassed by stablecoins, they should move deposits on-chain themselves. SWIFT has already launched a blockchain ledger involving 17 globally systemically important banks; Japan Post Bank’s DCJPY is set to open to 120 million accounts, and JPMorgan’s JPM Coin has already been operational. I covered this topic in Episode 18 of “New Finance of Stablecoins” and won’t repeat it here.
2️⃣ CBDCs (nationally driven): The U.S. Senate rejected the retail digital dollar by a vote of 85 to 5, but that’s just the U.S. The digital euro in Europe is moving forward, China’s e-CNY is continuing its rollout, and South Korea’s central bank is preparing to use its deposit token pilot to distribute 110 trillion Korean won in government subsidies. The U.S. stepping away from this race doesn’t mean the world is stepping away—on the contrary, it’s pushing other nations to fill the gap faster.
3️⃣ The alliance showdown (among central banks and regional alliances) is the most interesting and worth exploring. Below is a dedicated section on point three:
Three: The Alliance Brawl — A Global Team Battle Happening Simultaneously
In the past, when people talked about stablecoins, they often focused on “which issuer will win.” After 2026, this question will become outdated—because the players will no longer be companies, but alliances. And these will be multiple alliances competing simultaneously, overlapping and blocking each other:
🌐 BIS-led G7 alliance: Project Agora — the Bank for International Settlements brings together seven major central banks and a large number of regulated private institutions to create a unified ledger for tokenized commercial bank money and wholesale central bank money. This is a "headquarters-level" move within the existing system.
🇺🇸 The dollar camp: OUSD alliance + joint statement from the UK and US, involving over 140 companies across banking, payments, technology, and crypto. Coupled with the UK-US joint statement on digital assets, this signifies the Anglo camp uniting on the same front.
🇪🇺 Euro bloc: A euro stablecoin alliance composed of 37 banks under Qivalis. I mentioned on the 19th that it resembles a banking club more than a market.
🇨🇳 China: CIPS + mBridge, the Renminbi cross-border payment system combined with the Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge. It bypasses public blockchains and private entities, instead using a sovereign-to-sovereign clearing channel. (Non-US system settlement: Iran and Russia??)
🇯🇵 Japan: Project Pax, led by Progmat and Mitsubishi UFJ, aims to use existing SWIFT message channels for cross-border stablecoin settlements. Japan’s strategy is very Japanese—it doesn’t overturn the table, but improves the one already there.
🇰🇷 South Korea: Project Han River — the Bank of Korea’s deposit token and wholesale CBDC initiative — has entered its second phase, directly integrating with government subsidy disbursement use cases, with plans to expand into government bond tokenization and cross-border settlement, alongside integration with Agora.
🇸🇬 Singapore: Project Guardian, led by MAS, focuses on asset tokenization and institutional-grade DeFi, enlisting a group of international banks for pilot programs. Singapore’s consistent strategy: not competing for issuance rights, but seizing standards-setting and hub status.
🇦🇺 Australia: Project Acacia — Reserve Bank of Australia’s wholesale CBDC and tokenized settlement trial.
That’s a lot of terms to absorb at once…! What about Taiwan?
Should Taiwan also call it Project Bubble Tea? Or Project Fried Chicken? 🤣
——Of course, that line is my “Pai-style” humor, but the question below is no joke:
✅ While central banks, banks, and payment giants around the world are forming teams, naming their alliances, and scrambling for a seat at the table, where is Taiwan sitting right now?
Yesterday, former Premier Chen Chong also published an article urging—so why has Taiwan’s most important global technology industry suddenly gone silent?...
Four, Taiwan’s strategic position lies not in “issuing coins,” but in “chips and computing power” 🔥
This is something Financial Patrick has been talking about for a long time.
If Taiwan’s approach is “others have stablecoins, so we should have a TWD stablecoin too,” then we’ve already lost at the starting line. Because the ceiling for a TWD stablecoin is the international demand for the New Taiwan Dollar—and that demand, frankly, is quite limited.
✅ Taiwan's real leverage has never been currency, but semiconductors and computing power.
The global AI computing supply chain hinges on critical stages controlled by Taiwan. On this chain—covering chips, packaging, and server manufacturing—Taiwan’s influence is stronger than any regional currency alliance. Meanwhile, computing power is rapidly being financialized. I’ve also written an article on the topic of “compute power bonds and financialization” for the August issue of Taiwan Banker magazine, which will be published at the end of this month. Computing power is transforming from a mere “cost item for equipment procurement” into a tradable commodity with price discovery, futures markets, and the ability to be priced and traded in units of GPU-hours. CME is already offering compute power futures—this is not speculation.
Therefore, the direction Hayek Technology has always advocated is: "Asian Hashrate OPEC Alliance + Stablecoin Settlement Layer."
The logic behind taking action is simple and consists of three layers:
Layer one: transform computing power into a measurable commodity. Whoever owns how many GPUs, how many MW of electricity, and how many actual GPU-hours can all be measured and audited. This is Taiwan’s existing physical advantage.
Layer two: Commodify and tokenize computing power. GPU-Hour becomes an asset that can be traded, staked, and used as collateral for financing. This layer determines whether computing power can become a financial asset, not just a depreciating asset.
Layer three: settlement and clearing using stablecoins. Cross-border trading of computing power cannot wait for T+2 or tolerate foreign exchange friction across countries. It inherently requires a 24/7, programmable, borderless settlement layer—this is precisely the most compelling use case for stablecoins, far more meaningful than retail payments.
In other words: Taiwan doesn’t need to fight over “whose currency is used”—Taiwan should compete for “who sets the price and settles global computing power.”
When Asia’s mining power suppliers—Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Middle Eastern capital—establish a coordinated mechanism similar to OPEC to jointly determine mining power pricing and use a unified settlement infrastructure, Taiwan will no longer be merely a manufacturing node within someone else’s framework, but a co-designer of that framework.
This is the only irreplaceable position Taiwan has a chance to secure in this alliance battle.
Finally, celebrate the bonus conclusion of the 20th SpongeBob article.
In 2025, the crypto narrative was taken over by traditional finance. In 2026, traditional finance is splitting into a collection of competing alliances. And what all these alliances are truly fighting for is never the "coins," but control over settlement—something already discussed multiple times in previous articles.
If Taiwan only thinks about issuing a TWD stablecoin, it’s like trying to get a seat at someone else’s poker table. But if Taiwan clearly understands that it holds the chips and computing power the entire world is missing, then we’re not here to ask for a seat—we’re the ones qualified to deal the cards (don’t get distracted by cute online dealers… 🫠).
Whether it's Project Bubble Tea or Project Chicken Cutlet, the name doesn't matter. But first, we need to make sure we can sit at that table.
Welcome to open the project name for everyone to continue接力...👇
