The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) published its semiannual progress report on the adoption of DLT in capital markets. AFME’s figures show Asian digital bond issuances almost trebling to €3.77 billion in 2025, whereas European fixed income issuance roughly halved to €893 million following the end of the 2024 ECB DLT trials. Given these are still early days, it’s unclear whether these trends will persist. Despite the total value of bond issuances rising by around 50%, the number dropped from 55 to 39.
This is partly reflected in the size of digital bond issuances from Hong Kong in 2025. For example, in November 2025 the Hong Kong government issued a multi-tranched HKD 10 billion ($1.28bn) digital bond and in December, Hua Xia Financial Leasing issued one for $636m.
Different forces will drive activity this year. On the one hand Hong Kong has committed to normalizing sovereign digital green bond issuances, meaning we can expect more of them. On the other hand, during 2025 many mainland Chinese companies started getting interested in digital bonds and tokenized money market funds. Towards the end of the year the Chinese authorities sought to dampen enthusiasm, which is likely to temper public blockchain issuances, but may have less impact on permissioned blockchains such as HSBC Orion, which has hosted the largest issuances.
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