シンガポールとUAEが暗号資産採用ランキングで世界トップに躍進―規制環境の整備が追い風

金融ハブ都市がデジタル資産競争で新たな王者に

最新のグローバル暗号資産採用指数で、シンガポールとアラブ首長国連邦が従来の金融センターを抑えて首位を獲得した。両国とも規制フレームワークの早期整備と機関投資家の参入促進が評価された。

アジアと中東が暗号経済の新たな中心地に

伝統的な金融規制当局が未だに議論を続ける中、シンガポール金融管理局とUAEの規制当局は明確なガイドラインを迅速に導入。金融機関が「革新的すぎる」と恐れるテクノロジーを、両国はむしろ積極的に育成している。

機関資金が暗号市場に流入加速

ランキング上位国の共通点は、機関投資家向けの参入障壁を着実に取り除いている点だ。富裕層の資産配分から企業の財務戦略まで、デジタル資産が従来のポートフォリオに不可欠な要素となりつつある。

ウォール街の重鎮たちが未だにビットコインを「詐欺」と呼ぶ一方で、スマートマネーはすでに次の金融秩序に向けて配置を終えている―伝統金融が目を覚ます頃には、新しい王者の座は確固たるものになっているだろう。

Image source: Getty Images.

Dialing in the dividends

The telecom industry is full of big dividend payers. Longtime dividend stocks andmight top the list, the latter increasing its dividend for 19 straight years. But Verizon is also one of those stocks that's barely bumping that dividend, giving shareholders a pay bump of 1.25 cents per share each quarter in its most recent raise. That's a 1.8% increase.

By comparison,(TMUS -0.19%) announced its second consecutive annual dividend increase earlier this month after initiating a dividend in 2023. The pay bump of $0.14 per share each quarter represents a 16% increase from last year's dividend. Importantly, T-Mobile is well positioned to keep the double-digit increases coming for years into the future.

T-Mobile grew aggressively last decade with customer-friendly pricing and service that helped it gain market share. That culminated with its merger with Sprint, which expanded its customer base and its wireless spectrum license portfolio. After spending heavily to integrate Sprint's assets with its own, T-Mobile eased off the gas when it comes to attracting new customers with promotions. That said, it continues to take share from AT&T and Verizon on the strength of its 5G network.

With its merger synergies now realized and operating on a much larger scale, T-Mobile has become a cash-generating machine. Operating cash Flow climbed 27% in the second quarter, reaching $7 billion. While not quite as cash-generative as AT&T or Verizon, T-Mobile's growth is putting it on a path to meet its biggest rivals in just a few years.

That growth will likely stem from a combination of continued customer additions and higher average revenue per user (ARPU). The company has pushed new and existing customers to sign up for higher-priced plans with more features and benefits for several years. It recently started raising prices for existing customers on older plans as well. The results showed up in its second quarter results, when ARPU climbed 2.5% sequentially. The company notably didn't see any change in subscriber churn from the first quarter to the second quarter despite the price hike.

T-Mobile certainly meets the first criterion required for a great dividend growth stock: It possesses a strong and growing cash-generative business. But this second factor is just as important for dividend growth investors, if not more.

Management is on board

T-Mobile doesn't offer the high yields of Verizon or even AT&T. After the recent increase, the forward dividend yield is still just 1.7%.

But management is committed to raising the dividend and returning more capital to shareholders. In fact, when T-Mobile initiated its dividend, management said it planned to increase the payout by roughly 10% per year. So far, it's exceeded that mark, raising the dividend 35% last year.

Moreover, management committed to $50 billion in capital returns between late 2024 and the end of 2027. That's through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. So far, the vast majority of those returns have gone to share repurchases.

Front-loading the capital returns program with share repurchases enables the dividend to grow more quickly. If T-Mobile's paying the dividend on fewer shares, it can grow the dividend per share without a big increase in the total dividend payment. AT&T only recently started repurchasing its shares again, while Verizon hasn't repurchased shares in years as it works to pay down debt.

T-Mobile's aggressive share repurchases should set it up for another double-digit dividend raise next year. Management expects a $1.5 billion boost to free cash flow in 2026 thanks to new tax legislation. That's on top of continued growth from operating leverage. This could mean another 10% growth in free cash flow next year, supporting an even bigger dividend hike.

For investors who buy the stock now, another big dividend hike will compound for years to come, as T-Mobile looks poised to deliver many more dividend increases well into the future.