Original author: Joe Zhou, Foresight News
If 2024 was the "ice-breaking year" for ETFs to knock on Wall Street's door, and 2025 was the "year of regulatory reshaping" under Trump's new policies, then Consensus HK 2026, which just concluded in Hong Kong, has written a completely new script for this year.
We are about to witness an explosion of "silicon-based finance," a close-quarters battle between "sovereign stablecoins," and Crypto's departure from on-chain self-congratulation and its invisible infiltration into the real world.
Over the three days at the conference, as executives from the Solana Foundation and Binance shared the stage with suited elites from JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock, a striking sense of both separation and integration was palpable. The era of grassroots reforms was over, replaced by a meticulously crafted financial machine driven by national power, decentralized technology, and silicon-based lifecycles.
Through the perception of the emotions of more than 11,000 participants and the tracking of dozens of closed-door meetings, the author summarized three major Crypto consensuses for the beginning of 2026:
Consensus 1: AI without economic independence cannot be considered true silicon-based life.
The definition of AGI remains a subject of ongoing debate in the tech world. However, a new consensus is emerging: without independent financial sovereignty, and even the right to own a bank account, AGI is at best a sophisticated tool for humanity.
The most striking impact at the conference stemmed from a reversal of the subject-object relationship. The narrative was no longer about "how humans can use AI to trade better," but rather "how AI can use crypto to restructure production relations"—AI is autonomously issuing tokens, managing funds, and even paying salaries to real humans on the blockchain .
Two robots are boxing at the Consensus venue.
Whether it's Rentahuman (AI hiring humans to run errands offline) which went viral in early 2026, or Ethereum's newly launched ERC-8004 protocol, the most cutting-edge hackers are desperately trying to close this "silicon-based financial industry chain." Today, Ethereum, Base, Solana, and even Virtuals, which is designed specifically for AI, are all vying for the same throne: becoming the preferred underlying settlement network for silicon-based life.
This is not only a celebration for geeks, but also received official endorsement. In his keynote speech at the conference, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po described this vision with rare precision: "As AI agents are able to make and execute decisions independently, we will see the early form of the 'Machine Economy'—AI can hold digital assets on-chain, pay service fees, and trade with each other."
In 2026, the most active on-chain addresses will no longer be human whale, but tireless AI proxies. Crypto is becoming the "native bank account" for AI, while humans are being reduced to the "physical API" of AI.
Consensus 2: In the stablecoin battle, Hong Kong fired the first shot in the "onshore counterattack."
During my visit to Hong Kong, I noticed a dramatic contrast: physical cryptocurrency exchange (OTC) shops are springing up everywhere, but without exception, a "Notice to Leave" is posted at the most prominent counters—they have completely stopped selling USDT and USDC, which are US dollar stablecoins.
This was by no means a spontaneous act by merchants, but a premeditated "clearing out." On the main stage of the Consensus conference, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan revealed the answer: "Hong Kong plans to issue the first batch of a small number of stablecoin issuer licenses in March this year."
Photo: Cryptocurrency exchange shops in Hong Kong
This is an extremely sensitive political and economic signal. Just two weeks ago, Tether, the offshore king, bowed to US regulators and launched a compliant version of the US dollar stablecoin, USAT, attempting to take over Wall Street without bloodshed. Meanwhile, on this side of the world, Hong Kong has given the strongest response in order to counter the further draining of Asian liquidity by US dollar stablecoins.
This is no longer a simple cryptocurrency compliance issue, but a battle for monetary sovereignty between major powers. From the EU's MiCA law's complete ban on non-compliant dollar stablecoins, to Hong Kong's "big move" scheduled for March, to the euro stablecoin spearheaded by ten major European banks expected to be officially launched in the second half of 2026, a clear battle line has been drawn.
Hong Kong is using both physical and legal means to cut off the circulation of offshore US dollar stablecoins, paving the way for its own "regular army" (Hong Kong dollar/onshore stablecoins). By 2026, stablecoins will no longer be chips in crypto casinos, but rather "digital nuclear weapons" in the financial games of major powers.
The intention is obvious. While all of Asia is frantically buying USDT, Hong Kong has pressed the pause button ahead of time. This is a case of "cleaning the house before inviting guests," clearing the way for the compliant Hong Kong dollar stablecoins that will be fully launched in March.
US dollar stablecoins, Hong Kong dollar stablecoins, euro stablecoins, Japanese yen stablecoins... a stablecoin war led by governments around the world is about to officially begin in 2026 .
Consensus 3: Say goodbye to self-congratulation; the only way forward is to achieve real-world application of Mass Adoption.
Whether it was Solana's Lily Liu or BitGo's executives, they reached a rare consensus at the roundtable: the debate over L1/L2 TPS (transactions per second) is meaningless, and the infrastructure is already severely oversupplied.
The consensus in 2026 is: stop reinventing the wheel that only crypto enthusiasts revel in. The real winners are those applications that can "invisibly" embed crypto into Web2 scenarios.
A typical paradigm shift is taking place:
1. Seamless Integration: PayPal's PYUSD is not an isolated entity. Its success lies in its seamless access to hundreds of millions of users through Venmo, allowing payments to return to their original purpose.
2. Global Deployment: Protocols like Aeon Pay have quietly penetrated payment networks in eight countries around the world through on-chain QR code payments, without users even being aware of the blockchain's existence.
This trend has also been endorsed by Vitalik Buterin. He has recently emphasized on several occasions that the industry should stop using token incentives to "buy" user attention and instead focus on the real performance of applications.
Many industry practitioners believe that stablecoins, AI agents, prediction markets, and RWA (Real-World Asset Tokenization) are undertaking the early mission of enabling crypto to move towards large-scale application—they are not isolated speculative targets, but rather the underlying arteries connecting decentralized finance and the real world.
Epilogue: The Trials and Tribulations of 2026
The emotion conveyed by Consensus HK 2026 is calm yet cruel.
Crypto is entering a new phase.
This is no longer an era where you can get rich overnight by writing a few lines of Ponzi scheme code. As the heavy-duty forces of old money enter the market, and as AI agents begin executing trading strategies 24/7, the window of opportunity for retail investors and traditional independent developers is closing.
However, at the same time, the great era of "silicon-based finance" and "borderless compliant payments" has only just begun.
