RWA Global Development Practice and Prospects

RWA(Real World Assets) refers to real-world assets, which are physical assets such as real estate, equipment, bonds, etc., converted into tradable digital tokens through blockchain technology. This technology originated from the derivative concept of asset securitization in 2017 and has developed over the past 8 years. Unlike traditional securitization, RWA leverages blockchain technology to provide new possibilities for reshaping the liquidity of traditional global assets, aiming to break through the boundaries of traditional assets and regulation. This article will systematically analyze the global practices of RWA in core areas such as government bonds, real estate, and carbon credits, discussing the breakthroughs and conflicts of technology and regulation, and extrapolating future development paths.

Global RWA Core Tracks and Representative Projects

( Bond Tokenization: Institution-Led Compliance Experiment

In the context of the global economy's "three lows and one high" structural dilemma, traditional debt management frameworks face multiple challenges. Sovereign debt tokenization achieves the digital mapping of debt instruments through blockchain technology, demonstrating its technological empowerment value in enhancing secondary market liquidity, optimizing price discovery mechanisms, and reducing cross-border transaction friction costs. This innovation involves profound changes in the fiscal policy transmission mechanism and the monetary financial system, which will reshape the competitive landscape of the global debt market infrastructure.

Tokenization of government bonds is currently the most popular direction in RWA. In the recent high-interest rate environment of the global market, government bonds led by U.S. Treasuries maintain high yields. Government bonds anchored by blockchain technology can provide investors with increased flexibility in trading, reduce costs through technology, enhance trading speed, and increase market transparency. RWA has significant growth potential in the low-risk area of government bond trading.

In terms of internationally leading projects, asset management giant BlackRock's BUIDL fund adopted the ERC-1400 standard, reducing SEC compliance costs by 30%, and after three months of issuance, the management scale exceeded $500 million. Goldman Sachs' GS DAP platform issued $12 billion in digital bonds, significantly shortening the trade finance cycle from an average of 2 weeks to 48 hours, with a 60% improvement in settlement efficiency.

In Hong Kong, the Financial Management Authority embarked on its tokenization journey as early as 2021, conducting tokenized bond tests in collaboration with the Bank for International Settlements. By 2024, approximately HKD 7.8 billion worth of digital bonds, including HKD, RMB, USD, and EUR, have been issued through the CMU. Hong Kong is also promoting the Ensemble sandbox program to explore the application of asset tokenization.

There are currently no successful tokenized government bond projects implemented in mainland China; the main innovative instrument remains REITs. However, efforts have begun to digitally certify and promote diversified underlying assets. In 2024, a policy was passed to incorporate data assets into the balance sheet, promoting the certification of enterprise data and laying the foundation for blockchain integration of data assets.

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( Real Estate Tokenization: Challenges of Liquidity Reconstruction and Legal Adaptation

Against the backdrop of a global economic slowdown and the acceleration of digital transformation, the traditional real estate market faces numerous challenges. Real estate is characterized by high value and poor liquidity, with transaction cycles often exceeding several months. The friction costs of global real estate transactions account for 6%-10% of the total asset value, with institutional costs making up over 40%, and the average transaction cycle lasting 12-16 weeks, which severely hinders the effective allocation of assets and price discovery.

Among internationally leading projects, RealT in the United States has lowered the threshold for real estate investment to $50, but some transactions have been suspended due to mismatched on-chain and off-chain ownership. In the European Union, Propy has utilized AI-driven property transactions, saving 40% in labor costs, but EU buyers still need to further verify off-chain legal contracts. The Goldman Sachs GS DAP platform has partnered with Tradeweb to explore the tokenization of REITs.

In Hong Kong, the Securities and Futures Commission allows the tokenization of REITs shares. The Munch project collaborates with RWA.ltd to pilot the revenue NFT split for dining establishments, reducing the financing cycle by 50%. The Ensemble sandbox will launch a REITs tokenization test in 2025, aiming to lower the entry threshold for qualified investors from HKD 1 million to HKD 500,000.

On the mainland, Shenzhen's real estate registration system is piloting blockchain technology, with 30% of property rights information being recorded on-chain to enhance the efficiency and transparency of ownership verification. Conflux has partnered with Ant Group to complete the "Xunying Battery Swap Cabinet RWA" project, converting 4,000 offline devices into digital financial products.

) Tokenization of Carbon Credits: The Compliance Game in Environmental Finance

Under the global climate governance framework, the carbon credit market, as a key economic tool for ecological governance, has an innovative operational model that is crucial for sustainable development. Currently, there are significant geopolitical fragmentation issues in the global carbon market: the mechanisms for forming regional carbon prices vary, trading rules lack coordination, and cross-border circulation is hindered, leading to chaotic pricing of carbon assets and even an increased risk of resource misallocation.

In leading international projects, the Toucan Protocol has accumulated a trading volume of 4 billion USD, but is forced to adopt a "fixed" token model due to Verra's physical retirement requirements. Klima DAO promotes emission reductions through a carbon credit staking mechanism, but there is a risk of double counting carbon offsets. Gold Standard is developing reference standards for carbon credit tokenization.

In Hong Kong, the tokenization platform built by Ant Group enables the cash settlement of carbon credits and green bonds, with the completion of cross-border blockchain green certificate transactions for Brazil's household photovoltaic projects by 2025. The Monetary Authority has included carbon credits in the core pilot areas of the Ensemble sandbox to promote compatibility with international carbon market rules.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange has launched a blockchain carbon trading platform to achieve on-chain registration and trading of national carbon market quotas. The Left Bank Xinhui Agriculture RWA project integrates agricultural product data and carbon credits, completing a financing of 10 million yuan through "blockchain + Internet of Things" technology. The "Management Measures for Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Trading" clearly allows project-level carbon assets to be recorded on the chain.

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Breakthroughs and Conflicts in Technical-Regulatory Cooperation

( Compliance Architecture Innovation: Offshore SPV and On-chain Sandbox

The Project Guardian, led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, serves as a benchmark project for global fintech regulatory sandboxes, focusing deeply on the innovative applications of blockchain technology in cross-border financial transactions. By introducing Chainlink oracles, it successfully established a bridge connecting off-chain real-world data with on-chain smart contracts. The project significantly reduces the costs of cross-border settlements, shortening the transaction time from the "T+2" model to a matter of minutes.

The mainland relies on the "regulatory sandbox" mechanism and top-level design advantages to achieve deep coupling of technology and regulation in the digital yuan pilot. Through a "dual-layer operation" framework, the central bank leads the technical standards and underlying protocols, while commercial banks and technology companies are responsible for the implementation of scenarios, ensuring the concentration of currency issuance rights while leveraging blockchain to achieve real-time traceability of transaction data.

Hong Kong has carved out its own path in the regulation of virtual assets, leveraging its common law system and status as an international financial center. The "Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Ordinance )", effective in 2023, clearly establishes a licensing system for virtual asset service providers, requiring trading platforms to use on-chain data analysis tools for KYC/AML monitoring. In the area of security tokens, the "regulatory sandbox + investor tiered protection" model allows innovative projects to test smart contract-driven profit distribution mechanisms within a limited scope.

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) Technical Bottlenecks and Solutions

Oracles serve as the "data bridge" of the blockchain ecosystem, playing a key role in securely transmitting off-chain data to on-chain smart contracts. However, traditional single oracle architectures present significant risks. Ant Group in Hong Kong is exploring localized solutions in the "Langxin Project", innovatively deploying a "IoT terminal + multi-party secure computing" system for the tokenization of new energy charging pile assets. This solution controls data latency within 2 minutes, increasing reliability by 4 times compared to traditional single oracle solutions.

In terms of cross-chain interoperability, the Ensemble sandbox project led by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority introduced the LayerZero full-chain protocol, achieving instant transmission and verification of cross-chain messages based on the "light node verification + oracle collaboration" mechanism. The mainland, on the other hand, takes the "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area cross-chain infrastructure" pilot as a breakthrough, focusing on regional collaborative innovation. This project is based on consortium chain technology and achieves underlying technology compatibility among the blockchain platforms of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong through a unified cross-chain communication standard.

In terms of smart contract security, Hong Kong has built a dual guarantee system of "technical testing + third-party auditing" in its regulatory practices. The mainland, on the other hand, relies on the regulatory sandbox mechanism, and the National Internet Information Office has innovatively launched the "smart contract filing system." Pilot areas require that all on-chain contracts must pass the security testing of the National Internet Emergency Center, with the testing content including code compliance, encryption algorithm strength, data access permissions, and 12 other core indicators.

Liquidity Dilemma and Market Differentiation

In terms of the private credit market, Maple Finance, as the leading platform in the on-chain private credit sector, has cumulatively issued over $2 billion in loans, but its business structure shows a significant "crypto tilt" characteristic. The Hong Kong global shipping business network (GSBN) is reconstructing the cross-border trade financing model through an electronic bill of lading tokenization pilot. The mainland is relying on a mature supply chain ecosystem to create an inclusive on-chain financial service system. The online banking blockchain supply chain finance platform tokenizes assets such as accounts receivable and warehouse receipts through a "core enterprise credit penetration + blockchain proof" mechanism.

In terms of enhancing the liquidity of non-standard assets, the Hong Kong Munch project has constructed a "compliant stablecoin exchange + cross-border income rights registration" dual-layer architecture. On the mainland, it explores localized paths for improving liquidity of non-standard assets by relying on policy guidance and structured financial instruments. The Shanghai Left Bank Xinhui Agriculture RWA project tokenizes the income rights of the agricultural supply chain and optimizes the risk-return structure using a "government-guided fund + structured layering" mechanism.

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RWA Legal Compliance Framework and Case Analysis

) Domestic Legal Challenges and Compliance Pathways

The domestic regulatory framework explicitly prohibits token issuance financing ( ICO ), categorizing it as illegal public financing behavior. Domestic RWA projects must settle in fiat currency or compliant stablecoins, eliminating the involvement of virtual currencies in value circulation. In terms of foreign exchange regulation, RWA projects engaging in cross-border financing must adhere to capital project management regulations. Even without issuing tokens, domestic RWA projects are still required to comply with financial regulatory requirements, often through private equity fund managers' record-keeping, and utilize the private equity fund model to raise funds.

Hong Kong Sandbox Mechanism and Cross-Border Compliance

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Ensemble sandbox provides a compliant testing environment for RWA projects. Taking the RWA project of Longxin Technology's charging piles as an example, it adopts an "asset chain + transaction chain" architecture: the asset chain is based on the mainland alliance chain to record operational data and income rights, while the transaction chain relies on the Hong Kong licensed blockchain platform to connect to overseas funds. The stablecoin regulatory rules published by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in 2024 are mutually recognized as equivalent to the EU MiCA framework, allowing stablecoin issuers with relevant licenses in Hong Kong to apply directly for EU EMT licenses based on their qualifications.

Comparison of International Compliance Frameworks and Interoperability Dilemmas

The global RWA regulatory system shows significant regional characteristics, with its core differences.