Licensed to Shill: Taiwan's Banks & AI Hardware Makers Could Fuel Asia's Largest Stablecoin Corridor | Justin Wang, Capital Layer

Banks, not crypto-native companies, will determine how stablecoins are used across Asia, according to Justin Wang, chief executive of Capital Layer, on the latest episode of Licensed to Shill.

Wang entered the crypto industry in 2015 and later built one of the earliest point-of-sale systems accepting crypto payments in Singapore. He founded Capital Layer roughly a year ago to close what he described as a gap between banks and stablecoin infrastructure providers, arguing that most vendors selling wallet custody to banks underestimate the technical complexity of integrating with banking systems. Capital Layer now counts four banks as clients across Taiwan and Japan and expects to reach six or seven by the end of the year.

Wang's central claim is that stablecoin adoption will not be led by exchanges or wallets. "I believe the future use cases should start with banks," he said, arguing that trust in banking institutions, not crypto platforms, will determine which rails corporates and consumers eventually use. He predicted that meaningful adoption will be invisible to most users: "The true adoption innovation will happen when no one realizes," pointing to LINE Pay, which holds roughly 99% market share in Taiwan's payments market and is exploring settling cross-border purchases in Japanese yen stablecoins on the back end.

Taiwan's regulatory shift underpins Wang's timeline. The country passed its first virtual asset act roughly two months before the recording, requiring exchanges, wallet providers and listed companies to comply with new licensing rules by early 2027. Of Taiwan's 38 banks, Wang said 18 to 20 have already applied for stablecoin services licenses.

A second thread runs through Taiwan's position in the AI hardware supply chain. Wang said Taiwanese manufacturers produce the large majority of the world's AI PCs and components, and that Capital Layer has signed non-disclosure agreements with several device makers seeking to accept stablecoins as a payment corridor, aiming to become the leading distribution network for stablecoin payments into AI devices by the end of next year. He cited cross-border settlement costs as the driver: manufacturers selling into Latin America currently pay local real-time payment fees Wang put between 7.5% and 11%.

Lisa raised a caution Wang did not fully resolve. If corporates settle cross-border trade increasingly in dollar-pegged stablecoins rather than local currency, it could suppress demand for currencies like the new Taiwan dollar and weaken the multiplier effect that reinvested capital provides to local economies, a dynamic she said Vietnam has avoided by converting incoming dollars back into its own currency to fund domestic infrastructure.

If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to Blockcast on your favorite podcast platforms like Spotify and Apple.

Blockcast is hosted by Head of APAC at Ledger, Takatoshi Shibayama. Previous episodes of Blockcast can be found here, with guests like Daren Guo (Reap), Yat Siu (Animoca Brands), Kean Gilbert (Lido), Joey Isaacson (Nook), Kapil Dhiman (Quranium) Eric van Miltenburg (Ripple), Davide Menegaldo (Neon EVM), Anastasia Plotnikova (Fideum), Jeremy Tan (Singapore parliament candidate), Hassan Ahmed (Coinbase) and more on our recent shows.

If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to Blockcast on your favorite podcast platforms like Spotify and Apple.