Original Author: J.A.E, PANews

Since 2025, Hong Kong's capital market has sparked a "RWA gold rush." Against the backdrop of the accelerated compliance process of the crypto industry and RWA (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 reconstruction from "off-chain" to "on-chain."

These companies are no longer satisfied with traditional asset operation models; instead, they are attempting to leverage blockchain technology to "awaken" dormant assets, endowing them with new liquidity and market value. Listed companies from various industries are flocking into this new funding pool of RWA, some holding core properties, others deeply engaged in finance, and still others crossing into technology and healthcare.

Currently, the participation of listed companies in the RWA ecosystem can be divided into two categories: one is product issuers, who anchor their own assets to issue related products, and the other is business service providers, who offer technical, financial, consulting, and other RWA business services. PANews has compiled a list of recently active RWA concept listed companies in the market to see what new financial stories they are telling.

RWA Product Issuers: From "Dormant Assets" to "Liquid Tokens"

Product issuers anchor their core assets to activate existing assets through tokenization practices, enhancing their liquidity and exploring new business models.

Coolpad Group, a property management giant, has launched an RWA experiment. As a company primarily engaged in the smartphone business, Coolpad Group has faced performance challenges in recent years while holding a large amount of property assets. The company's announcement indicated that by the end of 2024, the value of its investment properties could reach HKD 3.151 billion, but the company's market value has long been below the book value of its net assets, reflecting that its asset value has not been fully realized in the capital market. To address this predicament, Coolpad Group established a "Real World Asset Tokenization Division" led by Chairman and CEO Mr. Chen Jiajun.

The main task of this division is to study and promote the feasibility of tokenizing the rights to its two core property assets—the Coolpad Building located in Nanshan, Shenzhen, and the Coolpad Technology Ecological Park located in Songshan Lake, Dongguan. Coolpad Group's strategic plan is implemented in four phases, reflecting the complexity of legal compliance in RWA issuance.

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

China New City leverages alliances and licensed platforms, focusing on commercial real estate tokenization. As a company primarily engaged in commercial real estate development, leasing, and hotel management, its layout in the RWA field is also aimed at revitalizing a large amount of existing assets. By the end of 2024, the company's investment properties could be valued at approximately RMB 4.337 billion, but the company's market value has long been below the book value of its net assets, prompting it to seek RWA tokenization to release asset value.

To achieve this goal, China New City has taken a two-step approach: first, on July 30, it participated as a co-initiator in establishing the "Hong Kong RWA Global Industry Alliance" to promote asset tokenization, including real estate, and explore cross-border asset cooperation mechanisms with ASEAN; second, on September 15, the company signed a service agreement with the licensed trading platform EXIO in Hong Kong, which will provide end-to-end commercial real estate tokenization services, including legal compliance, technical development, asset issuance, and circulation. China New City is attempting to strategically study and layout RWA product issuance through cooperation with leaders in the virtual asset industry, thereby promoting the re-release of existing asset value.

Delin Holdings is a microcosm of the "on-chain" migration of traditional finance. It is a financial company holding licenses No. 1, 4, 6, and 9 from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Delin Holdings' entry into RWA is not a new venture but rather an "upgrade package" for its traditional financial business, establishing strategic cooperation by subscribing to equity in the RWA fintech company Asseto, thereby bringing its existing asset management, securities trading, and family office business "on-chain."

The assets that Delin Holdings plans to tokenize include part of its equity in Delin Tower and managed fund assets. Notably, Delin Holdings intends to gift some tokenized assets to stakeholders in the form of "physical distribution." This model not only represents an innovation in shareholder returns but also allows participants to directly hold on-chain assets, gaining higher transparency and liquidity, thus exploring a new model of "compliance binding of shareholder identity and digital rights." It is evident that Delin Holdings views RWA as a means to "accelerate the transformation of the group's traditional financial services to on-chain."

Additionally, its deep partnership with Asseto and HashKey Group will provide strong ecological support for Delin Holdings to issue RWA products.

Guofu Quantum is a "catcher" of cross-industry transformation through "asset securitization." It also primarily engages in financial services while actively laying out the quantum technology industry, formulating a dual-track strategy of "quantum + digital assets," defining its entry into RWA as "seizing the early entry point for on-chain asset securitization."

Guofu Quantum has indirectly acquired shares in RWA technology service provider Rtree through a wholly-owned subsidiary to tokenize its assets, including high-value artworks, trade receivables, and supply chain operation assets. Rtree has launched on the Ethereum mainnet, with its first products including art collateral lending and on-chain fixed-income bonds. Therefore, Guofu Quantum's layout is not only to expand revenue but also to complete its "full value chain of digital assets." A strategic cooperation memorandum with Jinyong Investment also disclosed that it will provide RWA tokenization product design and issuance services for the latter.

In fact, Delin Holdings and Guofu Quantum are not only product issuers but also business service providers. The two roles are not in conflict; rather, compared to the speed of their business layout, both companies are more agile in product issuance.

RWA Business Service Providers: "Enablers" in the Ecosystem

Business service providers typically span different industries, using tokenization as a tool. They do not stop at tokenizing assets but leverage their advantages in fintech, industrial resources, or compliance licenses to provide key technical and service support for the RWA ecosystem, playing the role of "enablers."

Huajian Medical is a medical device and service company that is building a vertical RWA ecosystem. Huajian Medical's RWA strategy is unique; it not only focuses on asset tokenization but is also committed to building a vertical "IVDNewCo Exchange" ecosystem, with "high-tech assets in medical innovation drugs (NewCo)" and "intellectual property of medical innovation drugs" as core assets, along with the issuance of the stablecoin "IVDDollar" (IVDD).

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

Huajian Medical's model is a deep application of "technology empowering industry," using RWA as a tool to reshape the entire value chain of medical innovation drug assets, addressing core pain points in the industry by enhancing asset liquidity and financing efficiency, and creating "crypto asset premiums" for shareholders.

Yunfeng Financial focuses on building institutional-level "new financial infrastructure." Its main business is insurance and fintech. Yunfeng Financial's entry 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 Group), various signs indicate that RWA is transitioning from "wild paths" to the "regular army" era.

Yunfeng Financial's strategic route is not to tokenize a certain asset class but to invest directly in underlying public chains, such as focusing on building public chain Pharos for "institutional-level real-world asset" application scenarios, and collaborating with tech giants to "co-build new financial infrastructure for RWA." Yunfeng Financial plans to integrate its expertise in asset management, securities, insurance, and new energy carbon assets with Ant Group's technological accumulation to jointly explore RWA tokenization in cutting-edge fields such as ESG zero-carbon assets. This positioning has more long-term value, indicating that future competition in the RWA market will rise from the product level to the infrastructure level.

Jieli Trading Treasure is the "paver" of RWA infrastructure. It is a fintech company providing financial trading platform services, holding Class 1 and Class 7 licenses from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Jieli Trading Treasure's RWA strategy is to enter the service segment of the RWA ecosystem by establishing joint ventures or partnerships, playing the role of "infrastructure provider."

Jieli Trading Treasure plans to establish a joint venture with Frost & Sullivan and Jinzhu Holdings to become an authoritative RWA rating agency under the "Web 3 and international stablecoin legal framework." Additionally, it plans to reach strategic cooperation with Hong Kong-listed new energy company Boreton and licensed virtual asset company GCH, with Jieli Trading Treasure's licensed subsidiary responsible for the underwriting and distribution of RWA funds, to build a complete chain of "physical asset tokenization - RWA token on-chain issuance - asset token circulation and trading."

Jieli Trading Treasure's strategy directly addresses one of the core challenges currently faced by RWA—credit judgment and value assessment of underlying assets. By providing RWA rating and underwriting services, it offers the market a more transparent and objective credit anchor, which has more ecological value compared to mere tokenization.

Why Are Hong Kong-listed Companies Flocking to RWA?

From the above cases, it is evident that the motivations for Hong Kong-listed companies to enter RWA are diverse and intertwined, collectively forming the underlying logic of the RWA "gold rush."

First, it is about asset revitalization to "break through" valuation and liquidity dilemmas. Many Hong Kong-listed companies have long had market values below their book value of net assets, with a significant amount of physical assets on their balance sheets that have considerable book value but poor liquidity. Coolpad Group and China New City are the most typical examples, where their market values do not reflect the billions in investment property value. RWA provides a new solution for such companies.

Firstly, RWA tokenization will establish a market-based real-time pricing mechanism for originally illiquid physical assets, allowing their value to be reflected more objectively and timely in the secondary market, helping companies reassess their market value and narrow the gap with net assets. Secondly, RWA can split high-value, indivisible assets (such as real estate) into smaller token units, significantly lowering investment thresholds and attracting a broader investor base, thereby enhancing asset liquidity.

Essentially, RWA is a "new tool" for market value management. For listed companies long troubled by undervaluation, RWA offers a special way of managing market value, as it can not only activate dormant assets through tokenization, attracting the attention of traditional capital and assisting in valuation reshaping but also achieve value transfer from "balance sheet" to "on-chain."

Second, it is about strategic transformation, weaving a "lifebuoy" for declining performance and industrial downturns. When the traditional business growth of listed companies stagnates, seeking a second growth curve becomes a common need. Coolpad Group's mobile phone business and Delin Holdings' traditional financial business are both facing intensified competition and growth slowdown, and RWA provides a shortcut for rapid transformation and regaining favor in the capital market.

Firstly, RWA, as a frontier field at the intersection of the crypto economy and traditional finance, harbors enormous potential market space. By incorporating RWA into their transformation strategies, listed companies can help shed the negative image of their original industries' downturns and re-paint a new blueprint of "innovation and high growth" for the capital market. Secondly, RWA can not only activate existing assets but also give rise to new business models, such as issuing underwriting fees, asset management fees, transaction fees, etc., further enriching the company's revenue sources.

However, many listed companies' RWA announcements are "intentional" and "non-legally binding" statements, indicating that they are still in the early exploration stage, reflecting that RWA is both a direction for business transformation and partially serves as a "public relations tool" to boost market confidence.

Finally, it represents a new narrative of "backdoor listing" in the digital age. In the Hong Kong stock market, backdoor listing is a common capital operation model. RWA is providing a new narrative for this model. Some small listed companies with lower market values (i.e., "shell companies") are actively entering the RWA space, not to develop RWA businesses, but to use RWA to "reshape their identity."

By embracing RWA, such companies can leap from being an ordinary or even underperforming "shell" to becoming "pioneers in virtual assets" or "innovators in digital finance." This new identity will also attract new capital and shareholders interested in the crypto field, laying the foundation for the company's capital operations and business restructuring. Today, RWA tokenization is seen as a special capital operation model, providing a springboard for a new generation of digital asset projects to enter the capital market.

RWA acts as a "bridge" connecting traditional finance and the crypto market. In addition to the aforementioned Hong Kong-listed companies, more than a dozen other enterprises, such as New World Development, Kaisa Group, and Zhongjiu Mobile, are also rushing to enter the field. The collective bet of Hong Kong-listed companies on asset tokenization has injected new vitality into the Hong Kong capital market.

However, the road from "intention" to "implementation" is still fraught with thorns. Most Hong Kong-listed companies issue "voluntary announcements" and clearly state that they are "non-legally binding" or "still in the exploration stage," indicating that there are many uncertainties regarding the implementation of RWA business, and this new financial path remains long and challenging.

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