Original author: JAE, PANews

Since 2025, a "RWA gold rush" has swept the Hong Kong capital market. Against the backdrop of accelerating regulatory compliance in the crypto industry and RWAs (real-world assets), a large number of Hong Kong-listed companies with traditional financial licenses, physical assets, or existing business foundations are embedding RWA tokenization into their core strategies, planning to embark on a journey of value reshaping from "off-chain" to "on-chain."

No longer content with traditional asset management models, these companies are seeking to leverage blockchain technology to awaken dormant assets, imbuing them with new liquidity and market value. Publicly listed companies from a wide range of industries are flocking to this new RWA funding pool. Some own core properties, others are deeply involved in finance, and others are expanding into technology and healthcare.

Currently, listed companies participating in the RWA ecosystem can be divided into two categories: product issuers, leveraging their own assets to issue related products; and service providers, providing RWA services such as technology, finance, and consulting. PANews has reviewed recently active listed RWA companies to see what new financial stories they are telling.

RWA Product Issuers: From “Sleeping Assets” to “Liquid Tokens”

Product issuers use their own core assets as anchors to activate existing assets through tokenization practices, improve their liquidity and explore new business models.

Property management giant Coolpad Group has launched a real-world asset tokenization (RWA) experiment. As a company primarily focused on smartphones, Coolpad has faced ongoing performance challenges in recent years, despite holding a significant amount of real estate assets. Coolpad Group's announcement indicated that its investment properties were valued at HK$3.151 billion by the end of 2024, but the company's market capitalization has consistently fallen below its book value, reflecting a lack of capital market acknowledgment of its asset value. To address this dilemma, Coolpad Group established the "Real-World Asset Tokenization Division," led by Chairman and CEO Chen Jiajun.

The department's primary mission is to research and promote the feasibility of tokenizing the equity interests in two of its core property assets: the Coolpad Building in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, and the Coolpad Technology Eco-Park in Songshan Lake, Dongguan. Coolpad Group's strategic plan is structured into four phases, highlighting the legal and compliance complexities of issuing RWAs.

Coolpad Group's attempt is the most typical case of "asset revitalization" in the Hong Kong stock market. It promotes value release by providing more objective and fair pricing for assets through tokenization, indicating that RWA is used by it as a strategy to reshape valuations and activate dormant assets.

China New City, leveraging alliances and licensed platforms, is focusing on commercial real estate tokenization. As a company primarily engaged in commercial real estate development, leasing, and hotel management, its expansion into the RWA sector is also aimed at revitalizing its vast existing asset base. As of the end of 2024, the company's investment properties were valued at approximately RMB 4.337 billion. However, the company's market capitalization has long been below its book value, prompting it to explore RWA tokenization to unlock asset value.

To achieve this goal, China New City has taken a two-step approach. First, on July 30th, it co-founded the "Hong Kong RWA Global Industry Alliance" as a co-sponsor to promote the tokenization of assets, including real estate, and explore cross-border asset cooperation mechanisms with ASEAN. Second, on September 15th, the company signed a service agreement with Hong Kong-licensed trading platform EXIO, which will provide end-to-end commercial real estate tokenization services, including legal compliance, technology development, asset issuance, and circulation. China New City is attempting to collaborate with leaders in the virtual asset industry to strategically research and develop RWA product offerings, thereby unlocking the value of existing assets.

Deling Holdings, a financial company holding Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) licenses No. 1, 4, 6, and 9, epitomizes the shift of traditional finance onto the blockchain . Deling Holdings' entry into the RWA market isn't a fresh start, but rather an upgrade to its traditional financial services. By acquiring equity in Asseto, a RWA fintech company, Deling Holdings has established a strategic partnership, bringing its existing asset management, securities trading, and family office businesses onto the blockchain.

Delin Holdings plans to tokenize assets including its partial stake in Delin Building and managed fund assets. Notably, Delin Holdings intends to distribute some of these tokenized assets to stakeholders through "in-kind distributions." This model not only offers innovative shareholder rewards but also allows participants to directly hold on-chain assets, achieving greater transparency and liquidity, thereby exploring a new model for compliantly binding shareholder identity with digital rights. This demonstrates that Delin Holdings views RWA as a path to accelerate the on-chain transformation of the group's traditional financial services.

In addition, the deep binding between its partners Asseto and HashKey Group will also provide strong ecological support for Delin Holdings to issue RWA products.

Guofu Quantum is an "asset securitization" catcher that has undergone cross-border transformation. It also focuses on financial services and actively deploys in the quantum technology industry. It has formulated a dual-track strategy of "quantum + digital assets". In its announcement, it defined entering the RWA market as "seizing the early entrance to on-chain asset securitization."

Guofu Quantum, through an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, has subscribed to shares in Rtree, a RWA technology service provider, to tokenize its assets, including high-value artworks, trade receivables, and supply chain operational assets. Rtree has launched on the Ethereum mainnet, with its initial products including art-backed lending and on-chain fixed-income bonds. Therefore, Guofu Quantum's expansion is not only aimed at expanding revenue but also at completing its "full digital asset value chain." A strategic cooperation memorandum between Guofu Quantum and Jinyong Investment also disclosed that Guofu Quantum will provide RWA tokenization product design and issuance services to the latter.

In reality, Delin Holdings and Guofu Quantum are not only product issuers but also service providers. These two roles don't conflict; it's just that the two companies are more swift in product launches than in their business development efforts.

RWA Business Service Providers: “Enablers” in the Ecosystem

Business service providers usually span different industries and use tokenization as a tool. They not only tokenize assets, but also leverage their own advantages in financial technology, industrial resources or compliance licenses to provide key technical and service support for the RWA ecosystem, playing the role of "enabler".

Huajian Medical, a medical device and services company, is building a vertical RWA ecosystem. Huajian Medical's RWA strategy is unique. It goes beyond tokenized assets and is dedicated to building a vertical "IVDNewCo Exchange" ecosystem, leveraging "innovative medical drug high-tech assets (NewCo)" and "innovative medical drug intellectual property" as core assets. The platform also issues the stablecoin "IVDDollar" (IVDD).

To achieve this goal, Huajian Medical is actively establishing partnerships with major leading companies. 1) It has jointly established a fund with BGI Win-Win, a fund management company under BGI Genomics, to jointly invest in and screen innovative drug assets; 2) Huajian Medical has established a global strategic partnership with HashKey Group to explore RWA integration paths through the support of a compliance platform; 3) Huajian Medical has reached a strategic cooperation with Renhe International, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Renhe Pharmaceutical, to jointly establish the world's first vertical RWA trading platform in the over-the-counter drug field.

Huajian Medical's model is an in-depth application of "technology empowering industry". It uses RWA as a tool to reshape the value chain of the entire medical innovative drug asset chain, solve the core pain points in the industry by improving asset liquidity and financing efficiency, and create a "crypto asset premium" for shareholders.

Yunfeng Financial focuses on building institutional-grade "new financial infrastructure," with insurance and fintech as its core businesses. Yunfeng Financial's entry into the market symbolizes the recognition of RWA by top traditional financial institutions. Combined with Yunfeng Financial's strong background and the strong support of its partners (such as Ant Financial), all signs indicate that RWA is moving from a niche approach to a mainstream force.

Yunfeng Financial's strategic approach isn't to tokenize a specific asset class, but rather to invest directly in underlying public chains, such as Pharos, which focuses on building institutional-grade real-world asset applications. Yunfeng Financial is also collaborating with technology giants to build new RWA financial infrastructure. Yunfeng Financial plans to integrate its expertise in asset management, securities, insurance, and new energy carbon assets with Ant Financial's technological expertise to jointly explore RWA tokenization in cutting-edge areas such as ESG and zero-carbon assets. This positioning holds greater long-term value and signals that future competition in the RWA market will shift from product to infrastructure.

Jieli Trading, a fintech company providing financial trading platform services and holding Type 1 and Type 7 licenses from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, is a pioneer in building RWA infrastructure . Jieli Trading's RWA strategy is to establish joint ventures or partnerships to enter the service sector of the RWA ecosystem and play the role of an infrastructure provider.

Jieli Trading Bao plans to establish a joint venture with Frost & Sullivan and Golden Continent Holdings to become an "authoritative RWA rating agency under the Web 3 and international stablecoin legislation system." Furthermore, it plans to enter into strategic partnerships with Hong Kong-listed new energy company Boleiton and licensed virtual asset company GCH. Jieli Trading Bao's licensed subsidiary will be responsible for the underwriting and distribution of RWA funds, building a complete chain of "physical asset tokenization - RWA token issuance on-chain - asset token circulation and trading."

Jie Li Trading's strategy directly addresses one of the core challenges currently facing RWA - the credit judgment and value assessment of underlying assets. By providing RWA rating and underwriting services, it provides the market with a more transparent and objective credit anchor, which has greater ecological value than simple tokenization.

Why are Hong Kong-listed companies flocking to RWA?

From the above cases, we can see that the motivations of Hong Kong-listed companies to enter the RWA market are diverse and intertwined, which together constitute the underlying logic of the RWA "gold rush".

The first is asset revitalization, aiming to overcome valuation and liquidity constraints. Many Hong Kong-listed companies have long experienced market capitalizations below their book value, leaving them with a significant amount of illiquid physical assets on their balance sheets. Coolpad Group and China New City are prime examples, with market capitalizations failing to reflect the value of their multi-billion dollar investment properties. RWA offers a novel solution for these companies.

First, RWA tokenization will establish a market-based, real-time pricing mechanism for previously illiquid physical assets. Furthermore, their value can be more objectively and promptly reflected in the secondary market, helping companies revalue their market capitalization and narrow the gap between their net assets. Second, RWA can break down high-value, indivisible assets (such as real estate) into smaller token units, significantly lowering the investment threshold, attracting a wider investor base, and ultimately enhancing asset liquidity.

Essentially, RWA is a new tool for market capitalization management. For listed companies long plagued by low valuations, RWA offers a unique approach to market capitalization management. It not only activates dormant assets through tokenization, attracts the attention of traditional capital, and helps reshape valuations, but also enables the transfer of value from the balance sheet to the blockchain.

The second is strategic transformation, creating a lifeline to weather declining performance and industry downturns. When listed companies' traditional businesses stagnate, finding a secondary growth curve is a common need. Coolpad Group's mobile phone business and Delin Holdings' traditional financial business are facing intensified competition and stalling growth. RWA offers a shortcut to rapid transformation and regaining the favor of the capital market.

First, RWA, as a cutting-edge field at the intersection of the crypto economy and traditional finance, holds enormous market potential. Incorporating RWA into a listed company's transformation strategy can help it shed the negative image of its original industry's decline and present a new vision of "innovation and high growth" to the capital market. Second, RWA not only revitalizes existing assets but also fosters new business models, such as issuance and underwriting fees, asset management fees, and transaction fees, further enriching a company's revenue streams.

However, many listed companies' RWA announcements are "indicative" and "non-legally binding", indicating that they are still in the early stages of exploration. This reflects that RWA is not only the direction of business transformation, but also partially serves as a "public relations tool" to boost market confidence.

Finally, there's the new narrative of "backdoor listings" in the digital age. Backdoor listings are a common capital operation model in the Hong Kong stock market. Reverse-listed warrants (RWAs) are giving this model a new narrative. Some small, low-market-cap listed companies (referred to as "shell companies") are actively entering the RWA market, not with the goal of developing RWA business but rather using RWA to "reshape their identity."

By embracing RWA, such companies can elevate themselves from ordinary, or even underperforming, "shells" to "virtual asset pioneers" or "digital finance innovators." This new identity will also attract new capital and shareholders interested in the crypto space, laying the foundation for the company's capital operations and business restructuring. Today, RWA tokenization is considered a unique capital operation model, providing a springboard for the next generation of digital asset projects to enter the capital market.

RWAs serve as a bridge between traditional finance and the crypto market. In addition to the aforementioned Hong Kong-listed companies, over a dozen other companies, such as Future Land Development, Kaisa Group, and Zhongshouyou, are also entering the market. This collective bet on asset tokenization by Hong Kong-listed companies has injected new vitality into the Hong Kong capital market.

However, the road from "intention" to "implementation" remains fraught with obstacles. Most Hong Kong-listed companies make voluntary announcements, explicitly stating they are "non-legally binding" or "still in the exploratory phase." This suggests that the implementation of RWA services remains uncertain, and this new financial path remains a long and arduous journey.