Group President Evan Auyang told a WEF session in Bangkok that trust and regulation have to come first
Animoca Brands took its case for AI and digital ownership to one of the most buttoned-up rooms in global finance. At the 2026 International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, Group President Evan Auyang argued the two technologies can bring more people into the financial system.
There was a catch, and he named it himself. The upside only shows up if trust and regulation are handled properly from the start.
The remarks came during a World Economic Forum session held as part of the annual meetings, which ran from October 12 to 18. Auyang’s central claim was simple. AI paired with digital ownership can widen access to finance.
His conditions were less simple. He stressed that trust, suitability, and protection need to be built in at the outset, not bolted on afterward.
Auyang also pointed to two specific building blocks. He said regulated stablecoins and decentralized identity belong inside the regulatory frameworks that governments are still drafting.
He also flagged regulatory sandboxes as a key piece of the puzzle. A sandbox is a controlled environment where regulators let firms test new products under supervision, with limited scale and close monitoring.
Auyang was not the only private-sector voice on the panel. The session also featured representatives from S&P Global, Mastercard , Aon, BNY, and Dana Wallet.
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The broader agenda at this year’s IMF and World Bank gatherings centered on global economic resilience and technological change. Discussions around central bank digital currencies, tokenized deposits, and stablecoins fit squarely inside that theme.
Animoca Brands was founded in 2014 in Hong Kong by Yat Siu and David Kim. It started out in mobile gaming before branching into blockchain gaming and a wider set of decentralized technology investments.
More recently, the company has focused on the overlap between digital assets, tokenization, and AI agents. Its decentralized identity work runs through projects including Moca Network and AIR.
Animoca describes the destination as the agentic web. In that vision, AI agents act autonomously and come equipped with their own wallets and verifiable identities.
That explains why Auyang’s two named priorities, regulated stablecoins and decentralized identity, line up so neatly with Animoca’s own product roadmap. The policy ask and the business strategy are pointing in the same direction.
This is not a one-off message either. Auyang and Chairman Yat Siu have consistently pushed for regulation to evolve alongside the technology.
For crypto investors, the most relevant signal is where this conversation happened. Stablecoins and decentralized identity were discussed as policy tools at an IMF and World Bank event, alongside major financial incumbents.
For Animoca specifically, the stakes are straightforward. Its agentic web thesis depends on AI agents holding wallets and proving their identity. If regulators fold decentralized identity and regulated stablecoins into their frameworks, that thesis gets a much sturdier foundation.
Sandboxes are the practical thing to watch. They are where these ideas move from conference talking points to supervised experiments with real users.