Henson Orser

This post officially wraps up our #SoterInsureAsiaTour2026. We spent ten days across Seoul, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with five speaking engagements and plenty of interesting conversations along the way. I'm now in the UAE until October 14 to catch up with the team, and wanted to share my perspective on what we saw across the three markets: 1. One of the most interesting signals from Korea Blockchain Week came from an insurer. Kyobo Life, one of Korea's established life insurers, shared its perspective on moving from traditional to on-chain finance. Worth paying attention when a traditional insurer is working through that transition itself. 2. My own speaking engagements in Seoul focused on the risks behind that shift: stolen funds moving through stablecoin markets, and losses when things go wrong in DeFi. 𝐒𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐁𝐓𝐂-𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐓𝐇-𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞: matching insurance to the currency of the underlying exposure. We've started sharing video clips on that from my Seoul talks, beginning with Solana Summit. I also really enjoyed joining Robbie Nakarmi of Further Ventures, one of our investors, at RealFi x Asia Stablecoin Conference. Great to bring a bit of the UAE to the Korean audience together! 3. Hong Kong. In April, the HKMA granted its first two stablecoin issuer licenses to HSBC and Anchorpoint, out of 36 applications received in its initial batch. Licensing provides the regulatory foundation, but institutions also need insurance capacity to protect against custody, crime, and other digital asset risks. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐈 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥-𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐊𝐨𝐧𝐠. It was especially good to see Lawrence Chong, who has just joined us to lead partnerships and distribution across APAC from HK. 4. And finally Singapore, where the number of established companies and new entrants continues to impress. MAS made a timely point this week: scaling tokenized finance beyond pilots requires common standards, interoperability, and sound risk management. That is where commercial adoption gets real. Our work at Soter is concrete: underwrite digital asset risks on their own terms, expand the capital available to cover them, and structure policies in BTC or ETH when those are the assets at risk. Institutions need to know what is covered, what isn't, and who takes the loss when something goes wrong. Thanks very much to the organizers, partners, and everyone who made the trip worthwhile. Looking forward to building on these conversations. @soter_insure . Ensuring Trust.

Have a listen!

Fair trade not free trade.

Parade of the Planets tonight folks. @friedberg get one of those planet apps on your phone, and if you look closely, you will be able to see both Mars and Jupiter right behind Uranus. Isn’t that right @Jason and @chamath ?

A. Meta B. X C. Strategy Which of these doesn’t belong? @novogratz @elonmusk @finkd

Looking forward to discussing Bitcoin Financial Products at Bitcoin MENA next week. See you there! @bitcoinmenaconf @ADFinanceWeek

Thanks to @Official_Cantor for a great conference and @novogratz for a great keynote. Soter Insure. Ensuring Trust.