Written by: Lulu
At the beginning of 2026, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has made significant moves in the compliant digital asset space, directly rewriting the industry landscape for RWA (Real World Asset Tokenization).
On February 23, the Hong Kong SFC announced that it had granted a license to Esperanza Securities, a subsidiary of Yi Sheng Financial Technology, on February 13, allowing it to carry out compliant tokenization of entertainment assets—such as the 40th anniversary concert of Huang Kaiqin and the Malaysian tour of the South Korean boy band—formally bringing offline entertainment assets under the regulated digital securities issuance category. Qualified investors can participate in concert investments through purchasing security tokens, sharing in the industry dividends.
Just a day later, on February 26, Derlin Holdings announced that its RWA projects in Central Derlin Building, among others, had been approved for issuance by the Hong Kong SFC on February 24.
Within just seven days, two major physical asset RWAs were approved in succession, achieving a leap from entertainment IP to core commercial real estate.
This is by no means an isolated product innovation but a clear strategic signal released by Hong Kong regulators: compliant RWA is transitioning from being an exclusive financial asset game for institutions to a universal era of coverage in the physical industry.
For countless mainland traditional enterprise owners and practitioners looking to enter Web3, understanding the regulatory logic, pitfall avoidance guide, and transformation path behind this break in entertainment RWA is the core prerequisite to seizing the digital asset era dividends in 2026.
Breaking the Ice for Cultural Tourism RWA: Not a Case, but a Strategic Shift of Hong Kong Regulation
The approval of Esperanza Securities’ entertainment asset tokenization has caused a stir across the industry, primarily because it completely breaks the inherent boundaries of compliant RWA in Hong Kong, validating a replicable path for digital compliance of physical assets.
Looking back at the development history of RWA in Hong Kong:
In 2023-2024, core players in the sector were concentrated in standardized financial asset fields such as real estate, green bonds, and new energy infrastructure, constituting a typical "institution-exclusive game";
As the year 2026 began, the approval of entertainment asset tokenization formally marked that the core direction of Hong Kong’s regulation has shifted from "standardized financial assets on-chain" to "compliant digitalization of all categories of physical assets with stable cash flow".
This regulatory evolution path clearly shows Hong Kong's core strategy: to act as a "super connector" between the mainland and the world, traditional finance and digital assets, making it a global "outlet" for non-standard physical assets.
From real estate and new energy to concerts, the regulatory core standard has never changed: as long as the underlying assets have real cash flow and clearly defined ownership, they can complete token issuance, circulation, and value realization within the regulatory framework of the Hong Kong SFC.
For traditional enterprises in the mainland, this means a brand new era has arrived:
Your cultural tourism spots, consumer brands, agricultural assets, IP copyrights, and supply chain income rights, regardless of size or sector, can achieve asset value reconstruction, broaden financing channels, and enhance liquidity through this compliance model.
Lessons from Giants’ Pitfalls: 3 Core Deadlocks to Avoid in Transformation
As the entertainment RWA opens a new window, we must face the painful lessons of the industry in 2025—a pure financial fixed-income bond model represented by some new energy RWAs ultimately faced a commercial model defeat.
These historical lessons are the deadlocks that all traditional enterprises must avoid while transforming to Web3.
1. The Dual Squeeze of Interest Rate Inversion and Compliance Costs
The core paradox of the pure fixed income bond model is the mismatch in interest rate environments between the mainland and Hong Kong.
Bringing assets from the low-interest mainland to seek financing in the high-interest Hong Kong requires projects to provide a 9%-12% overall return to attract qualified investors in Hong Kong. However, the annual yield of infrastructure assets like charging stations and photovoltaics is only about 7%. After deducting rigid costs such as on-chain audits, IoT maintenance, and legal fees, the interest margin is nearly erased, and the commercial model cannot fundamentally stand.
2. Severe Mismatch Between Asset Scale and Issuance Threshold
A complete compliant RWA issuance process in Hong Kong requires legal, technical, and licensed underwriting starting costs of over 2.5 million HKD.
This means if the underlying asset scale is below 300 million RMB, the so-called "cost reduction and efficiency increase" is completely a fallacy. After the cross-border filing system is implemented in 2026, the cross-border RWA businesses with securities attributes must be operated by licensed financial institutions, directly focusing on enterprises with annual revenues of 100 million to 1 billion RMB with stable cash flow. Small and medium-sized enterprises entering blindly will only be dragged down by high costs.
3. Physical Bottlenecks and Lack of Secondary Liquidity for Offline Assets
All RWAs deeply linked to offline physical infrastructure face an ultimate growth dilemma: the mismatch between the explosion of online consensus and the ability to fulfill offline rights.
When the community user base grows from 10,000 to 100,000, you cannot instantly build 100,000 charging stations; the rollout speed of traditional infrastructure fundamentally stifles the asset's explosive power.
Simultaneously, in the fixed-income bond model of RWA, the core demand of buyers is to hold until maturity for principal and interest repayment, with no secondary trading demand. Even though Hong Kong currently has 12 licensed exchanges with complete technology, effective liquidity cannot be formed, ultimately leading to being a specialized yield financial management tool for institutional clients.
The Complete Path for Transformation in 2026: 4 Compliant Tracks, Precise Selection for Different Enterprises
The breaking of the ice in entertainment RWA points to the core direction for traditional enterprises to transform to Web3 in 2026: from virtual to real, shifting from "competing in finance" to "competing in consumption", and from "fixed income" to "user rights".
We have finely divided the compliant paths based on the properties of underlying assets and regulatory logic into 4 tracks, allowing enterprises of different scales and sectors to precisely match their transformation paths.
1. Usage Rights Type: The Golden Track for SMEs in Cultural/Consumer/Brand in 2026
This is the core battlefield where consumer goods enterprises, cultural IP parties, and cultural tourism project parties can legally participate at a low threshold, and it represents the most replicable logic of entertainment RWA.
The core logic is "not selling equity, but selling usage rights," completely avoiding the red line of securities regulation, with no high compliance thresholds and no need for licensed institutional underwriting, enabling market entities to operate compliantly, particularly suitable for consumer brands, cultural IPs, and cultural tourism projects with annual revenues in the tens of millions.
Mainland Model: Uses a "buy product and get digital assets" approach to decouple from financial attributes, strictly prohibiting any promises of returns or dividends. Digital assets correspond only to consumption rights and scarcity rights (like blind boxes, fan rights, IP peripherals), with secondary trading limited to licensed platforms of cultural exchanges. Digital assets of brain platinum hanging ear coffee, Miaokelan Duo consumer rights digital assets, and Shaanxi "Qin Xiao Guo" buying fruit and receiving digital assets are all mature cases that have been successfully run, and can be further connected with listed companies for external incubation of subsidiaries and new models linked to cryptocurrencies and stocks.
Overseas Model: Designed for cultural/brand/consumer going overseas, also centered on "selling digital rights," allowing the issuance of utility tokens and secondary high liquidity trading on compliant trading platforms. A deflationary model of "profit repurchase and destruction of rights tokens" can achieve asset appreciation while cleverly avoiding the financial securities regulation "Howey Test," simultaneously achieving brand private user retention and overseas revenue growth.
2. Securities Dividend Type RWA: The Narrow Path for Compliant Enterprises with Annual Revenue of 100 Million+
This track corresponds to the traditional fixed-income RWA model, most deeply affected by the new cross-border filing regulations introduced in February 2026, representing a typical "regular army battlefield."
The core is to earn cash flow dividends from the assets themselves; cross-border securities issuance for domestic assets must go through regulatory approval, making it suitable only for real enterprises with annual revenues of 100 million to 1 billion RMB that have stable cash flow. High compliance costs and interest rate environments dictate that this is a game for giants, and small and medium-sized enterprises should not recklessly enter.
The Ant Group’s new energy RWA in 2024, Hong Kong private equity fund RWA, and the beginning of 2026’s Derlin real estate RWA and Esperanza Securities’ entertainment asset tokenization RWA are all benchmark cases for compliant financial investment RWA approved by the Hong Kong SFC.
3. Asset-anchored Type: Value Storage Infrastructure for Licensed Institutions
Represented by digital RMB, USD stablecoins, and gold tokenization, the core function is as a payment tool and value scale, pursuing a 1:1 stable anchoring without committing to dividends, and serves as the valuation foundation for the entire RWA track.
This track is suitable only for licensed financial institutions, with little to no entry space for ordinary enterprises and individuals.
In March 2026, the upcoming issuance of stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong will be an exclusive battlefield for licensed institutions, making it difficult even for internet giants to enter.
4. Mainland Data Assets RDA: Exclusive Gold Mine for State-Owned Enterprises and Listed Companies
Relying on the mainland's data asset utilization policies, only limited to state-owned enterprises, listed companies, and other entities, allows for internal high-quality data assets to be put on-chain for secure valuation, and after completing data pledges, they can apply for low-interest loans from banks.
This track essentially represents a strategic display of industrial digital transformation, making it very difficult for market-oriented institutions and individual entrepreneurs to participate; it is a typical "national team" track.
The series of compliant measures rolled out by the Hong Kong SFC in 2026 have completely opened the era for digitalization of physical assets.
The breaking of the ice in entertainment RWA is not about prompting traditional enterprises to blindly invest in concerts, but about helping us understand a core logic: Web3 is not a magic wand but an amplifier; the core value of RWA has never been about using unprofitable assets to raise money but transforming valuable physical assets through digitalization to facilitate user connections, amplify value, and enhance liquidity.
For traditional enterprises, the transformation opportunities in 2026 are never about following the hype of the RWA concept but finding the compliant path that suits their asset properties, avoiding the pitfalls encountered by giants, and completing the validation from zero to one at the lowest cost.
Bailu Hospitality and numerous partners are here in Hong Kong and the mainland to accompany every enterprise owner holding real assets and sustainable cash flow, as well as every ambitious person wanting to enter Web3, in navigating every compliant path for transformation to Web3.
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