Chinese Tech Giant Ant Group Registers Hong Kong Trademarks Tied to Crypto, Stablecoins

In short

Ant Group has filed to register the “ANTCOIN” trademark in Hong Kong, masking digital wallets, on-line funds, and stablecoin providers.
The submitting follows the group’s current crypto and blockchain initiatives, together with USDC fee pilots and power asset tokenization.
Observers say the transfer is being finished to “defend” the group’s curiosity and handle danger because it seems to be to safe a presence in Hong Kong.

Ant Group, China’s largest web finance firm, is reportedly laying the groundwork for a return to digital belongings.

The tech large has utilized in Hong Kong to register a sequence of emblems associated to digital belongings, stablecoins, and blockchain applied sciences, together with one for “ANTCOIN,” in response to a Monday report from Hong Kong Financial Instances, citing public filings.

In a single software filed with Hong Kong’s Mental Property Division in June, discovered and seen by Decrypt, a broad scope of monetary and digital-asset providers beneath the proposed ANTCOIN mark is listed.

The submitting consists of registrations for offering on-line funds, digital wallets, overseas change, and the issuance and switch of stablecoins and digital tokens. It stays pending earlier than the registry.

Decrypt reached out to Ant Group to substantiate the standing and scope of its Hong Kong trademark purposes however didn’t instantly obtain a response.

The group’s resolution to file for emblems equivalent to ANTCOIN seems as a “strategic transfer to guard their pursuits” in Hong Kong’s burgeoning digital asset sector, Joshua Chu, lawyer, lecturer, and co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Affiliation, instructed Decrypt.

“Though current regulatory developments from Beijing have put their stablecoin ambitions on ice, retaining IP rights ensures Ant can defend its model,” Chu mentioned.

Earlier this month, Beijing reportedly ordered main tech corporations, together with Ant Group, to suspend their stablecoin-related initiatives in Hong Kong.

Ant Group’s subsequent transfer would rely on the way it goes about with “finding out points” which have “induced their ambitions to be iced within the first place,” Chu mentioned.

Chu warned that there have been instances “the place unauthorized or fraudulent tokens masquerade as USDT” with out really being issued by Tether. Different scammers, for example, “have created tokens on numerous blockchains that use related names, symbols, or contract addresses” to look professional.

There are additionally “high-fidelity copycat contracts” that may deceive customers into believing they maintain real stablecoins, he added. Such operations are among the many dangers that stablecoin gamers like Ant Group who could also be trying to open enterprise in Hong Kong would face.

“Trademark safety is a prudent and important a part of danger administration,” he added.

Ant Group and crypto

Co-founded by Chinese language serial entrepreneur Jack Ma, Ant Group has been steadily adopting blockchain and digital asset infrastructure as a part of its broader shift to monetary tech.

In July, Ant Group labored with Circle, a public U.S. firm, to pilot USDC-based cross-border funds between Ant Worldwide’s Alipay+ community and choose world retailers, in one of many first integrations of a regulated stablecoin into its fee rails.

A month later, the group dismissed rumors that it was working with China’s central financial institution on a uncommon earth-backed RMB stablecoin.

In September, its Ant Digital Applied sciences unit unveiled a blockchain platform to tokenize energy assets in China, linking roughly $8 billion price of infrastructure to on-chain techniques.