Hong Kong, February 10, 2026 — During Consensus Hong Kong 2026, the "Institutional Payments & On-Chain Financial Infrastructure Summit," co-hosted by Cregis, an enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure and fintech service provider, along with Stable, Jsquare, and FutureCloud, was successfully held on the afternoon of February 9 at the Conrad Hong Kong Hotel. This closed-door summit brought together industry leaders from Conflux, SlowMist, Hex Trust, Tevau, Interlace, AWS, BlockOffice, Cynopsis, Vesta Capital, and other institutions to conduct in-depth discussions on core topics such as stablecoins, institutional payments, on-chain financial infrastructure, security, and compliance.
From Exploration to Expansion: Crypto Infrastructure Enters the Era of Scale
With stablecoin market capitalization surpassing the $100 billion mark, on-chain payments are moving from early adoption to the mainstream financial system. In his opening remarks, Cregis CTO Aaron Zhang pointed out: "We are standing at a critical historical juncture: on-chain financial infrastructure is no longer a technical question of 'feasibility,' but rather an engineering and governance issue of 'how to scale.' Today's discussion will directly influence the future evolution of the global financial system."
Aaron recalled that in the early days, the market was only familiar with personal wallets such as MetaMask, but struggled to understand the value of "enterprise wallets." He pointed out that if cryptocurrency is to truly integrate into the business world and become a stable circulating "currency," businesses must be able to manage and use digital assets securely and compliantly, which is fundamentally different from personal asset management.
Based on this understanding, Cregis has built a three-tiered technical architecture system with security, compliance, and ease of integration as its pillars:
- The underlying security layer employs advanced technologies such as MPC and HSM to safeguard private keys like a "vault".
- Intermediate Access and Audit Layer : Through proprietary infrastructure such as DIG, all key access is traceable and auditable, and risk analysis and control are integrated.
- Upper-layer asset management and business layer : Provides flexible workflows, multi-chain support and blockchain risk management, and seamlessly integrates with enterprise systems such as payment engines, ERP, and OA, empowering multiple business scenarios such as asset management, cross-border payments, and transactions.
Aaron emphasized that this robust infrastructure enables customers to securely access their global digital assets through a single platform, which is the foundation for Cregis's steady expansion to over 50 countries, serving nearly 3,500 enterprise customers, and achieving zero security incidents.
Looking ahead, Cregis' strategy transcends "enterprise wallets," moving towards a grander vision: to drive the global adoption and application of stablecoins. The company has already begun developing its custody business and is actively acquiring relevant licenses such as VASP, aiming to provide enterprises with bank-like SaaS-based custody services. The longer-term goal is to build a blockchain settlement system connecting various banks, replacing traditional clearing networks, and even revolutionizing card payment networks, ultimately enabling "enterprises to focus on their business without worrying about the technical details of asset management, and freely use globally issued stablecoins." Aaron stated that Cregis' mission is to continuously build critical infrastructure and work with partners to promote the integration of the crypto economy into real-world business and achieve large-scale application.
Stablecoins: From Payment Instruments to the Underlying Foundation of Finance
In the first roundtable discussion titled "Payments and Stablecoins as Financial Infrastructure," Jsquare investment analyst Noah Frankel moderated an in-depth discussion with Stable CEO Brian Mehler, Tevau co-founder Andy Liu, and Conflux Hong Kong head Esther Jiang.
Brian Mehler shared Stable's observations on institutional adoption: the "last mile" problem for stablecoins in cross-border payments remains prominent, especially in emerging markets, where on-chain liquidity of local currencies is insufficient and transaction fees are too high. Stable is building a native Layer 1 payment network whose core mechanism allows users to directly use transferred assets (such as USDT) to settle network fees, thus completely eliminating reliance on independent, volatile gas tokens. This significantly improves the predictability of payment costs and user experience.
Andy Liu points out that one of the biggest obstacles currently facing stablecoins is the lack of regulatory licenses. For example, in Hong Kong, USDT is not yet a legal tender, which ironically creates market space for card issuance and payment gateways. In the next five years, emerging markets will launch locally compliant stablecoins, forming a parallel landscape of "global stablecoins + local stablecoins." At the same time, more and more SMEs are using stablecoins for high-frequency cash flow payments because they offer high-liquidity, yield-generating products with a 24-hour lock-up period, superior to traditional banks' 7-day fixed deposits.
Esther Jiang emphasized that Conflux, as a compliance-oriented Layer 1 platform, not only supports mainstream USD stablecoins but also actively integrates long-tail stablecoins such as the Korean Won, Japanese Yen, and offshore RMB to meet diverse cross-border settlement scenarios. Stablecoins should not merely be speculative or savings tools but should become a settlement infrastructure supporting real-economy trade and economic exchanges such as the Belt and Road Initiative. Furthermore, the CFTC's recent guidance on stablecoins is an important signal, signifying that stablecoins are transitioning from "crypto assets" to "regulated financial instruments," with banks potentially becoming issuance nodes in the future, fundamentally changing the game.
Security and Compliance: Building a Trustworthy On-Chain Financial System
The second roundtable discussion, "Security and Compliance in On-Chain Financial Systems," was moderated by Rony Dahan, Founder and CEO of Vesta Capital, focusing on the most critical security systems in institutional deployments. Blue Yang, CTO of SlowMist; Giorgia Pellizzari, CTO of Hex Trust; Christian Corrigan, CFO of BlockOffice; and Chionh Chye Kit, Co-founder and CEO of Cynopssis, shared their practical insights in their respective fields.
Blue Yang pointed out that most institutional security incidents do not stem from sophisticated technical attacks, but rather from operational errors, improper permission configurations, poor key management, or human error. At the DeFi protocol level, there is currently a lack of effective real-time risk prediction and AML interception systems, allowing hackers to quickly transfer assets via cross-chain bridges, making asset freezing difficult. He suggested that in the future, oracle systems may need to be introduced to integrate AML/CFT risk control, enabling pre-transaction risk prediction and interception. Furthermore, the industry urgently needs to establish a recognized security standard and certification system, providing clear guidance for compliance through collaboration among project teams, auditing firms, and regulatory authorities.
Giorgia Pellizzari argues that traditional fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies are fundamentally contradictory in their operational frameworks: the former emphasizes identity verification and transaction reversibility, while the latter is based on anonymity and technological irreversibility. The core pain point in current compliance efforts lies in mechanically applying traditional financial "travel rules" to the crypto world, a process that is cumbersome and inefficient (e.g., requiring users to "prove wallet ownership with screenshots"). She points out that what the industry truly lacks are native standards for Web3 features, such as cross-chain interoperability and secure interaction specifications for institutional-grade DeFi. These standards require collaboration between the private sector and policymakers, but the pace of technological iteration far exceeds the standard-setting cycle, posing a significant challenge.
Christian Corrigan recommends that even startups must use multisignature, MPC, or professional escrow services to manage funds, eliminating single-person control. Regarding compliance, he sharply points out that some current rules (such as proving wallet ownership) are "very stupid" in practice and easily circumvented. He believes that the ideal of Web3 (permissionless, trustless) has evolved in reality into necessary regulation and mature infrastructure. Good compliance and security practices are not constraints, but rather the cornerstone for the industry to become mainstream and for protecting users.
Chionh Chye Kit stated that the future will be a world of deep integration between Web 2 and Web 3 services, and compliance must be forward-looking, not a black-and-white approach choosing a single path. He systematically pointed out that organizations need to build a comprehensive compliance system spanning three major vertical areas: information security (such as ISO 27001), data privacy, and AI governance. Obtaining and maintaining these international certifications is time-consuming and labor-intensive, but it is key to building trust. At the same time, he cautioned the industry that while advocating for standards, it must also be wary of creating another heavy and inefficient compliance burden, like "travel regulations."
Evolution path of enterprise-level digital asset infrastructure
During his keynote speech, Henry Chan, Head of Strategy and Operations at Interlace, pointed out that while the current penetration rate of stablecoins in real-world payments is only about 1%, the market size is expected to grow from $35 trillion to $200 trillion over the next four years, with the main growth coming from real-world payment scenarios – a 100-fold growth opportunity. Interlace provides card issuance, bank accounts, QR codes, wallet-as-a-service®, fund management, and acquiring capabilities through a one-stop platform, serving 7,000 corporate clients globally and obtaining key licenses in Europe and Dubai, laying the foundation for global expansion.
Kong Lei, Head of AWS Web3 Solutions Architecture, shared how AWS empowers the construction of secure and highly available digital financial infrastructure. He introduced AWS's stablecoin reference architecture, analyzed the case of USDC achieving cross-chain functionality on AWS, and demonstrated how to leverage AWS Gen AI solutions to build intelligent digital financial businesses.
Focusing on industry consensus: safe, efficient, and compliant infrastructure construction
The summit concluded with several industry consensuses: the ultimate form of stablecoins will be a hybrid system of "globally universal stablecoins + locally compliant stablecoins," gradually integrating with traditional payment networks; institutional-grade infrastructure requires unified industry standards and data specifications to reduce integration costs; a regular dialogue mechanism between regulatory agencies, industry associations, and technology providers needs to be established; compliance should not be an afterthought but rather the first principle of architectural design; and the core of security lies in systems and processes, rather than simply relying on technology.
In his concluding remarks, Cregis co-founder Aaron Zhang stated, "Today's discussion validates our assessment: the industry is shifting from 'why we need on-chain financial infrastructure' to 'how to build it better.' Cregis will continue to collaborate with ecosystem partners to drive the development of interoperable, compliance-first, and institution-ready infrastructure."
This summit was jointly hosted by Cregis, Stable, Jsquare, and FutureCloud, and received strong support from Interlace, DR, AWS, and other organizations. Participants unanimously agreed that with the gradual clarification of regulatory frameworks, the increasing maturity of technical architectures, and the accelerated adoption by institutions, on-chain financial infrastructure is ushering in a historic development opportunity and will profoundly reshape the paradigm of global capital flows and business settlements.
