Southeast Asia Pushes Finance On-Chain as Governments, Banks and Firms Move in Step

Southeast Asia Blockchain Week 2026 held on May 20-21

Thailand and Indonesia step up support for digital assets

Infrastructure expansion accelerates around AI, stablecoins and tokenization

Southeast Asia is speeding up its push to compete in next-generation global financial infrastructure. Governments, banks and Web3 companies are moving in parallel to bring digital assets into the regulated financial system.

At Southeast Asia Blockchain Week 2026, held on May 20-21 at Bangkok's Iconsiam, the main themes were artificial intelligence, tokenized finance, stablecoins and on-chain asset infrastructure.

Southeast Asia Accelerates On-Chain Finance

At the event, government agencies from across Southeast Asia laid out plans to institutionalize the digital-asset industry and move financial systems on-chain. The conversation has broadened beyond cryptocurrency trading to include tokenized securities, tokenized deposits and stablecoin-based financial infrastructure.

Butree Vongsiriroongruang, a director at Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission, said the regulator is making digital technology and support for the digital-asset industry a core strategy for the next three years. Thailand plans to improve financial access and market efficiency by expanding on-chain issuance and real-time settlement. The regulator is also reviewing digital payment structures including stablecoins, tokenized deposits and e-money tokens.

Single-asset exchange-traded funds based on Bitcoin and Ether are poised to launch in the third quarter of this year, he said. He added that digital assets will become an investable asset class accessible to investors. The official also stressed that industry growth and investor protection must advance together, and said Thailand plans to strengthen market surveillance using AI.

Muhammad Neil El Himam, deputy for digital and technology innovation at Indonesia's Ministry of Creative Economy, said a new era is opening in which intellectual property and blockchain are being combined to turn creative works into investable assets.

Referring to Pokemon and Indonesia's local IP project Tahilalats, he said IP is evolving into a financial asset capable of generating recurring revenue. Blockchain, he added, is a core technology that can improve transparency and liquidity for IP assets while broadening access to global markets.

Indonesia is currently running the Infinity Accelerator Program for Web3 projects, supporting IP tokenization and the build-out of on-chain royalty systems. It is also expanding experiments in tokenizing real-world assets backed by real estate, gold and bonds.

Hashed's Kim: Digital Assets to Become Core Infrastructure in the AI Era

The convergence of AI and digital assets was also a central topic. Speakers said the expansion of the AI industry will increase the importance of blockchain-based data and payment infrastructure.

Hashed Chief Executive Officer Kim Seo-jun said in a keynote speech that data ownership and global payment systems will become far more important in the AI era. As the AI agent economy expands, the role of digital assets and blockchain-based financial infrastructure will grow as well.

Kim said the existing internet was built around platform-centric structures for data ownership and value transfer, and that framework will shift quickly as the AI industry expands. As AI models and agents become more active, issues involving data contribution, settlement and global value transfer will take on greater importance.

Blockchain is the key technology for implementing data ownership and settlement structures in the AI era, Kim said. Digital assets are not simply investment products, he added. They will serve as infrastructure linking the global internet economy.

AI and blockchain are unlikely to remain separate industries, he said. Instead, they are likely to be connected within a single economic structure. If AI generates content and services, blockchain will handle value transfer and compensation.

Stablecoins and Tokenization to Be Absorbed Into Finance

Stablecoins and tokenized finance also emerged as central themes. Speakers repeatedly said traditional financial institutions and global fintech firms are beginning to treat digital assets not simply as an investment market, but as a new layer of financial infrastructure.

David Katz, vice president for strategy and public policy at Circle, said stablecoins will be naturally absorbed into the financial system. The digital-asset industry is no longer just a speculative market. It is moving into a phase in which it is reshaping the structure of global payments and asset transfers.

He said stablecoins will spread quickly through existing banking systems and global payment networks. Financial institutions and fintech firms are now competing in earnest to build remittance, payment and settlement systems using stablecoins.

Users will move into an environment where they no longer need to recognize stablecoins directly, Katz said. Digital-asset technology stands to be integrated naturally into financial services.

Thailand's financial industry is also speeding up its push into tokenized finance. Kaweewut Temphuwapat, chief executive officer of SCB 10X, the venture capital arm of Siam Commercial Bank, said digital assets will become a key pillar of future financial infrastructure rather than just another investment asset. Within the next two to three years, the tokenized-asset market could expand to about 10% of global gross domestic product, he said.

Stablecoin transaction volume has already grown beyond Visa and Mastercard, he said. Most real-world assets, including bonds, stocks, real estate, gold and commodities, can be tokenized.