CZ Backs ASEAN Crypto Passporting as 10-Nation Licensing Maze Drains Budgets

Changpeng Zhao publicly endorsed a plan to let crypto firms licensed in one ASEAN country enter others through a fast-track process. He spoke at the ASEAN Tech Summit Manila 2026, during a session called "One ASEAN, One Digital Economy."

Zhao backed a proposal from Lito Villanueva of FinTech Alliance PH. The idea is simple: a firm already regulated in Singapore, for example, would notify its home regulator and submit a slimmed-down filing to expand into Vietnam or the Philippines. No full license application from scratch. No rebuilding the compliance stack at every border.

ASEAN has no such system for digital assets today. Each of the ten member states runs its own rulebook. A company trying to operate across five or six markets fights five or six separate regulatory battles. That means duplicated legal teams, fragmented timelines, and high overhead. Smaller firms, the ones that might bring genuine competition, often stay out.

Zhao argued the framework would slash compliance costs, sharpen competition, and push service quality higher. He did not pretend the politics would be easy. Technology, he said, is the easy part. Political coordination is the hard part.

ASEAN has already built similar cross-border arrangements in other financial areas. The ASEAN Capital Markets Forum's Collective Investment Schemes Framework lets funds operate across borders through a streamlined authorization process. Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand launched it in 2014. The Philippines joined in 2021. The ACMF also runs a pass for investment advisers under its Professional Mobility Framework. Regulators in the region know how to do mutual recognition. They just have not applied it to crypto.