Hong Kong's on-chain competition heats up, and many giants such as JD.com and Ant accelerate the implementation of Hong Kong RWA

Author: Nancy, PANews

At a time when the global asset tokenization wave is sweeping, Hong Kong is becoming a key test site for on-chain asset layout. Recently, the on-chain layout is ushering in a moment of accelerated evolution: on the one hand, the Hong Kong government has launched multiple measures to promote tokenization experiments, and on the other hand, many Internet and traditional financial companies such as JD.com, Futu Securities, Ant Digital Technology and Guotai Junan are actively promoting RWA layout.

According to PANews, many domestic companies holding physical assets have also heard about it, seeking to put their assets on the chain and carry out tokenized financing. The most common compliance solution is to confirm the rights of domestic assets on the alliance chain, then set up a main controlling domestic assets in Hong Kong, and then issue coins to finance. This type of enterprise goes from agriculture to new energy to real estate, and exploring the essence of RWA (real asset tokenization) is still for financing, but the RWA industry in Hong Kong is still feeling the stones.

As Hong Kong RWA speeds up, many institutions accelerate their layout

The real asset chain uplift is becoming a key fulcrum for the deep integration of TradeFi and crypto finance, and a "two-way" financial transformation is accelerating in Hong Kong. In recent months, companies such as JD.com, Ant Digital Technology, Guotai Junan International, China Carbon Neutrality and HashKey Chain have been deeply involved in the innovation and implementation of the RWA field through different paths such as stablecoin issuance, traditional asset tokenization, and RWA infrastructure construction.

JD Technology: Issuing stablecoins in Hong Kong to promote RWA layout

According to Zero One Think Tank, JD Technology Group recently released a number of RWA-related job recruitment information on BOSS Direct Recruitment, positioning it as "the company's strategic layout in the field of combining new energy and blockchain." The recruitment positions include asset management system product director and solution director, who are mainly responsible for the asset management system design, asset acquisition and industrialization of new energy assets RWA. It is worth noting that JD.com clearly requires that product designs need to be seamlessly connected with JD.com’s stablecoin and digital RMB. At the same time, JD Technology Group also recruited a position of "Overseas Financial Business Development", focusing on promoting the implementation of stablecoin business.

In July last year, JD.com announced its layout in the stablecoin track and plans to issue a stablecoin JD-HKD, which is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar, in Hong Kong. The stablecoin reserve consists of highly liquid and trustworthy assets that will be securely stored in separate accounts of licensed financial institutions and verify the integrity of the reserves through regular disclosure and audit reports. At present, the project has officially entered the Hong Kong Monetary Authority stablecoin sandbox pilot.

It is worth mentioning that JINGDONG Coinlink, a subsidiary of JINGDONG, also reached a cooperation with Tianxing Bank jointly established by Xiaomi Group and Shangcheng Group. As a licensed virtual bank, Tianxing Bank will provide financial compliance support for JD.com to explore cross-border payment solutions based on stablecoins under the framework of the HKMA stablecoin sandbox. The bank is controlled by Xiaomi Group by 50.30%, and Futu Group holds 44.11%.

In order to further promote the stablecoin strategy, in March this year, JD.com also announced the recruitment of stablecoin policy researchers, requiring a deep financial background and policy research capabilities, focusing on domestic and foreign stablecoin policy regulations, and maintaining communication with regulatory agencies.

Regarding the issuance of stablecoins, Dr. Shen Jianguang, Vice President of JD.com Group, pointed out in a recent speech that stablecoins are decentralized commercial issuance at the company level and fluctuate slightly due to the macroeconomic impact. JD.com issued stablecoins to further enhance JD.com's global supply chain and cross-border payment capabilities. Once stablecoins are approved for issuance in Hong Kong, they are expected to be implemented in multiple countries and regions, but they still need to follow regulatory rules of different countries. For example, if the EU MiCA requires a local company to be established and a license is applied for, Japan can accept Hong Kong's issuance of coins. JD.com will actively promote global compliance layout and build a stablecoin infrastructure.

Ant Digital Technology: Technology and scenarios advance together, RWA

layout speeds up

Since 2024, Ant Digital Technology has begun to accelerate its layout in the RWA field. In May, as one of the first participants in the private sector, Ant Digital Technology joined the Hong Kong Monetary Authority Ensemble Project Sandbox to participate in tokenized deposit technology testing, asset tokenization scenario exploration and industry standards formulation, and then recruited RWA architects in Hong Kong. Subsequently, Ant Digital Technology has made frequent moves in RWA applications, such as cooperating with Sui to promote RWA tokenization in the ESG (environmental, social and governance) field, joining forces with green energy service provider GCL Energy Technology to successfully complete the first domestic RWA case involving RMB 200 million in photovoltaic entity assets, cooperating with Conflux TreeTiTiChain to participate in China's first green energy battery swap asset RWA project, and providing technical support for Xunying Group's first global battery swap asset RWA.

While continuing to expand application scenarios, Ant Digital Technology is also deepening its technical foundation construction. For example, in October last year, Ant Chain, a subsidiary of Ant Digital Technology, released its "two chains and one bridge" platform for the RWA business for the first time, aiming to help more mainland new energy assets go to Hong Kong RWA and achieve technology empowerment of physical assets. In April this year, Ant Digital Technology's open source new generation blockchain virtual machine DTVM integrated the large language model development framework SmartCogent, and it is also fully compatible with the Ethereum ecosystem, which can eliminate language barriers for RWA scenario developers.

Earlier this month, Ant Digital launched the Layer2 blockchain Jovay for overseas markets, a high-performance trusted blockchain platform specially designed for RWA transactions, supporting 100,000 TPS and 100 millisecond response time. Jovay uses TEE and zk dual proof systems, which can seamlessly connect Layer1 blockchains such as Ethereum, to help convert global new energy assets into tradable digital assets.

Guotai Junan International: Formal to carry out tokenized securities

business layout

On May 11, Guotai Junan International issued a statement saying that according to the "Circular for Intermediaries to engage in Tokenized Securities Related Activities" issued by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission, relevant business plans were submitted for tokenized securities distribution business and digital bond issuance business, and the regulatory authorities have confirmed that there are no further problems.

The institution stated that Guotai Junan International submitted a wealth management-related business plan to the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission on January 21, 2025, and plans to distribute tokenized securities to customers or provide opinions on tokenized securities based on the original securities transactions. The types of tokenized securities covered by the plan include: structured products linked to a variety of target assets (such as structured notes, over-the-counter derivatives), funds accredited by the Securities Regulatory Commission and non-accredited funds and bonds. The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission issued a confirmation email on May 7, 2025, with no further problems with the plan. At the same time, based on the original bond issuance business, Guotai Junan International submitted a digital bond issuance business plan to the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission. In the future, it will be able to serve as an overall coordinator, a syndicated capital market intermediary or a delivery bank in the digital bond issuance project. The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission confirmed on April 2, 2025 that there are no further problems with the plan.

China's carbon neutrality: Plan to promote green asset tokenization

Earlier this month, Hong Kong-listed company China Carbon Neutrality issued an announcement stating that the company has signed a strategic partner framework agreement with Gower Street Holdings Co., Ltd. (Gower Street Group), and the two parties have carried out cooperation in multiple fields such as equity cooperation and business cooperation. According to the agreement, China Carbon Neutrality will consider strategic investment in CSpro, a securities token issuance platform under Gol Street Group, and jointly explore the research and development of innovative financial tools in the field of green assets under the rule of law and regulatory framework of Hong Kong, and promote the implementation of green asset tokenization projects including carbon assets.

HashKey Chain: It has reached RWA cooperation with more than 200

institutions

In March this year, HashKey Chain announced that the tokenized US dollar money market fund CPIC Estable MMF initiated and managed by China Taiping Investment Management (Hong Kong) has been successfully deployed to HashKey Chain, and the subscription scale reached US$100 million on the first day of operation. Through its deployment on HashKey Chain, CPIC Estable MMF can provide digital asset allocation tools for institutional investors. In the same month, HashKey Group and Bose Fund (International) Co., Ltd. announced that the joint launch of the Hong Kong dollar and US dollar currency market ETF tokenization scheme has been approved by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission (SFC). This is the world's first tokenized currency market ETF and is also one of the important projects in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) Ensemble sandbox project to conduct innovative tokenization for RWA.

According to Kay, CEO of HashKey Eco Labs, as of now, the HashKey Chain team has conducted in-depth docking with more than 200 institutions, involving traditional financial institutions, asset management companies, technology companies and Web3 native projects, etc. They are exploring tokenizing traditional financial products such as money market funds (MMFs), ETFs, bonds, etc., and achieving 7×24-hour global market reach, real-time transactions and capital efficiency improvements through blockchain.

Wall Street accelerates its launch, how can Hong Kong seize the new high

ground for RWA?

At present, the main force in promoting global tokenization innovation still comes from the United States. Represented by traditional Wall Street financial institutions such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, traditional capital inflows are accelerating the inflow of traditional funds on the chain through Bitcoin spot ETF channels and traditional asset tokenization.

Meanwhile, the United States has taken the lead in providing policy support, including Paul Atkins, the new SEC chairman, also made it clear at the latest crypto roundtable that the migration of securities from off-chain systems to on-chain systems is similar to the evolution of audio records from vinyl to cassettes to digital software decades ago. This change is expected to completely transform the securities market through new issuance, trading, holding and use methods. The SEC must keep pace with innovation and evaluate whether the existing regulatory framework needs to be adjusted to adapt to the development of on-chain securities and other crypto assets. At the same time, regulatory agencies should establish a reasonable crypto asset market supervision framework, formulate clear rules to regulate issuance, custody and transactions, and continue to crack down on illegal activities.

In contrast, Hong Kong companies are relatively cautious in the development pace of RWA tokenization. But as we all know, Hong Kong itself has rich financial resources, its financial infrastructure, mature capital market and efficient regulatory system, making Hong Kong one of the global financial centers. As an innovative financial tool, once RWA is promoted on a larger scale in Hong Kong, it will show huge growth potential in traditional finance, thereby promoting the further deepening of Hong Kong's financial market and globalization.

Hong Kong institutions are conservative about RWA tokenization, mainly due to the strictness of compliance requirements. Hong Kong's financial regulatory system focuses on stability and compliance to ensure that financial innovation does not compromise on market stability and transparency. Therefore, how to achieve innovation under the premise of conforming to Hong Kong's legal framework and regulatory policies is an important challenge facing local institutions. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, some compliance paths have been explored in practice. In addition to compliance, the reason why the industry pays attention to regulatory attitudes is that the news of policies directly affects the flow of funds. Currently, RWA assets are ready to go, and the situation of on-site funds is more concerned about.

However, Hong Kong is actually in a positive attitude towards promoting tokenization policies. For example, the Ensemble project launched by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) aims to explore the feasibility of tokenized assets in practical application scenarios through sandbox testing, which is of great significance to promoting market understanding and application. In addition, Hong Kong is exploring Hong Kong dollar stablecoins and focusing on establishing a stablecoin regulatory framework, including the Stablecoin Bill that plans to resume the second reading debate at the Legislative Council meeting on May 21. If the bill is passed, the Monetary Authority will accelerate the approval of stablecoin-related licenses to provide the market with a clearer regulatory environment. Not only that, Hong Kong government officials are also optimistic about the prospect of tokenization. For example, the speech by Xu Zhengyu, Secretary for Financial Affairs and Treasury of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, further stated that Hong Kong not only hopes to promote the tokenization of assets such as gold, but also strives to promote the integration of the real economy through digital finance.

Hong Kong also supports the blockchain technology level. For example, according to the ThreeDAO official account of Wanwu Island, Dr. Xiao Feng, founder of Wanxiang Blockchain, once suggested that the Ethereum Foundation set up an office in Hong Kong during a private exchange with Ethereum founder Vitalik. Xiao Feng pointed out that blockchain developers are mainly concentrated in the English and Chinese worlds, and losing the Chinese market means losing important global developer resources. China's technology departments, government agencies and developer groups respect Ethereum technology and recommend that foundations should not stay away from the Chinese market.

Nowadays, with the participation of many leading companies mentioned above, it may bring confidence to more Hong Kong companies in a wait-and-see state, providing them with motivation to learn from and promote.

In general, as more and more institutions around the world accelerate the tokenization of financial assets, the development space of the RWA track is being further opened, and Hong Kong has also ushered in an important policy opportunity and development window. Therefore, in the face of increasingly clear policy orientation and increasingly mature technical paths, Hong Kong should moderately release innovation experiment space on the basis of ensuring financial stability and compliance, promote more traditional institutions to move from waiting and watching to practice, guide more traditional financial funds to enter the market, and accelerate the localization of the RWA ecosystem to connect with the global integration.