A new Chainalysis report covering July 2025 to June 2026 shows East Asia’s five largest crypto markets now hold an economy worth roughly $1.2 trillion. The region is marked by a widening gap between official crypto rules and actual trading behavior, with mainland China standing out because crypto trading has been banned for years. Despite that ban, Chainalysis estimates China’s crypto economy at a minimum of $176.3 billion. The clearest sign of divergence is that the number of distinct wallets sending peer-to-peer stablecoin transfers inside China rose 43 times between the first quarter of 2024 and the second quarter of 2026.
During the reporting window, the firm tracked $104.1 billion moving through 18.1 million self-custodied stablecoin transfers in China. The turnover rate reached 33.2 times per year, more than triple the global average of 9.3, suggesting users are treating stablecoins as operating cash rather than long-term savings. Domestic peer-to-peer transfers accounted for 59.1% of China’s total crypto activity, about 3.5 times their share a year earlier. In March 2026 alone, domestic P2P stablecoin activity added $4.9 billion.
Hong Kong’s market, valued at $192.2 billion, is the most institutional in East Asia. About 16% of money flowing into services went to institutional platforms, nearly three times the share of any neighbor, with 85% of that going to custody providers, prime brokers, and market makers. Hong Kong also recorded almost $24 billion in business-to-business flows, while institutional platform receipts grew 87% year-over-year. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority granted the first two stablecoin issuer licenses to HSBC and Anchorpoint, a venture backed by Standard Chartered, HKT and Animoca Brands, on April 10, 2026. However, trading venues, pairs and start dates have not yet been arranged, and a February notice from the People’s Bank of China and seven other agencies banned unauthorized yuan-pegged coins at home and abroad.
South Korea remains East Asia’s largest crypto market at $449.1 billion, up 12.3% over the period, helped by a 16.3% increase in exchange activity and an additional $51.1 billion in exchange-related flows. The market is overwhelmingly retail-driven, and Chainalysis found South Korean retail traders tilted harder toward AI-linked tokens than any other category, with AI-linked assets displacing legacy tokens such as XRP. Traders are also monitoring a 22% tax on crypto gains, set to take effect on January 1, 2027, though lawmaker Han Dong-hoon is pushing for another two-year delay.
Japan’s market was valued at $228.3 billion, with decentralized exchanges accounting for 34.5% of service activity, the highest DEX share among established markets in the region. DEX usage has more than tripled since 2022, and 65.7% of swaps were between $10 and $1,000. Crypto gains in Japan are currently taxed as miscellaneous income at rates reaching about 55%, although a future reclassification under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act is expected to introduce a lower 20% flat rate from January 1, 2028.
