2025 Global Digital Economy Forum follows non-financial RWA innovative practices to open up new financing paths for the real economy.

On the morning of August 11th, the "2025 Global Digital Economy Work International Cooperation Forum" was grandly opened at the Hainan International Convention and Exhibition Center. This forum was hosted by the China Overseas Development Association and organized by the Global Digital Economy Work Committee of the China Ocean Association. At this summit, the innovative practices of our country’s enterprises in the tokenization (RWA) of physical assets in the non-financial sector have attracted widespread attention.

The on-chain of physical assets has achieved breakthrough attempts in multiple scenarios.

The market size trend of RWA is forming explosive growth. Zhou Shuai, Chairman of Guoying Holdings, stated in a keynote speech that the RWA market is dominated by institutional capital, with the total surpassing 100 billion. By June 2025, the global on-chain RWA is expected to reach 23 billion USD, a 124% increase compared to 2024, with the first breakthrough of the 10 billion mark occurring in March 2025. According to predictions from well-known institutions, it could reach a market size of 16 trillion USD by 2030, with traditional financial institutions like Goldman Sachs accelerating their layout, pushing the market from concept validation to large-scale implementation, with an expected annual compound growth rate reaching several hundred percentage points.

At the roundtable forum "RWA Empowering Industries: Exploring Innovative Scenarios and Future Trends", the host Zhao Yidan, co-founder of Huoxun Finance and vice president of the RWA Research Institute brand IP, listed two benchmark cases of non-financial RWA in China: Hainan Huatie launched the first batch of non-financial RWA products worth 10 million yuan, converting the usage rights of aerial engineering machinery into on-chain equity assets. This marks the first compliant landing of RWA in the engineering equipment field, opening up a new path of "no rights confirmation, no division, and circulation possible". In July 2025, Coolpad established the "Real World Asset Tokenization Division", directly led by the chairman to promote property asset RWA. Its core goal is to activate the book value of 3.151 billion HKD in investment real estate, with the first phase focusing on the Coolpad Building in Nanshan, Shenzhen and the Songshan Lake Technology Ecological Park in Dongguan. If the pilot is successful, Coolpad can not only activate heavy assets and optimize its liability structure but also hopes to transform from a property holder to an "asset tokenization service provider", offering replicable transformation paths for other enterprises.

Dou Jun, the Executive Secretary of the Blockchain Special Committee of the China Communications Industry Association, shared the distinctive "Hainan Huanghuali Tree RWA" project. This project will tokenize 30,000 rare tree assets that are 28 years old, with a single tree valued at 120,000 to 150,000 yuan. "The growth cycle of mahogany lasts up to 50 years, and traditional investments have extremely poor liquidity. Through RWA, stable assets have come 'alive'." Dou Jun emphasized that this project strictly avoids financial attributes and focuses on the confirmation and circulation of physical assets.

Professor Yang Yumei from Zhejiang University uses the Liaoning "Digital Islands" project as an example to reveal the innovative potential of RWA in the cultural tourism industry. The project issues "island owner" membership cards through blockchain certification, allowing investors to enjoy consumption rights on the island while also receiving dividend income from ticket sales. "Technology has turned 'consumption equals investment' from a slogan into reality," Yang Yumei pointed out, "RWA breaks down cultural tourism investments, which can easily reach billions, into inclusive shares, activating public participation."

The initiator of RWA Wave Lab and Hong Kong EG ASSET private banking Web3.0 Consultant, Hao Yikun, supplemented the cross-border practical case: the Wyndham Hotel in Phuket, Thailand raised £4 million through RWA, with hotel booking data interacting in real-time on the chain, ensuring that overseas investors clearly grasp operational returns. "The core of non-financial RWA is to establish a transparent and trustworthy asset operation mapping, rather than non-financial arbitrage."

Balancing Compliance and Innovation: Hainan Free Trade Port Becomes a Testing Ground

Faced with the high compliance costs of financial RWA in Hong Kong, non-financial pathways are seen as the key to breaking the deadlock. Li Deshi, president of the Haikou Blockchain Association, stated at the forum: "China needs to explore a different path from the financialized RWA in the United States—focusing on non-standard physical assets, especially by leveraging the policy advantages of cross-border data flow in Hainan to construct the 'RDA (Data Assetization) - Tokenization' pathway."

Wang Pengfei, chairman of Shucang China, called on the industry to "try first and then regulate" on-site: "Exploring physical exchange-type RWA within a compliance framework and showcasing real cases to the market is the only way to promote the improvement of rules." His company is preparing to launch a non-financial RWA project in Hong Kong, attempting to connect domestic physical assets with compliant circulation overseas.

Challenges Remain: The Dual Game of Transparency and Liquidity

Despite the broad prospects, non-financial RWA still faces severe challenges. Hao Yikun pointed out that the transparency of the entire chain of enterprise operation data may harm business secrets; Dou Jun frankly stated that the technical facilities for "real-time on-chain data of physical assets" are not yet popularized. Yang Yumei further emphasized the urgency of investor education: "Most people have not even come into contact with cryptocurrency wallets, how can they understand the value of RWA?"

Lawyer Liu Honglin from Shanghai Mankun Law Firm stated: "The future of RWA needs to achieve automatic on-chain operation data and intelligent contract distribution of revenue, maximizing the elimination of human intervention—this is the true meaning of blockchain empowering the entity."

Yang Yumei predicts that the on-chain of real assets will develop in the long term, closely integrating with composable finance. With the help of professional tools such as artificial intelligence, it will provide customized financial services for various industries in the future, promoting the deep integration of digital finance and the real economy, and driving the continuous innovation and development of RWA.

In the future, Hainan is expected to form a batch of replicable and promotable RWA application benchmark projects within the next three to five years, promoting the deep integration of cross-border capital flow and industrial resource allocation. In the competitive landscape of the global digital economy, Hainan is stepping towards an important source of global RWA innovation with an open, innovative, and compliant posture, building an efficient, safe, and interconnected capital expressway for SMEs and international investors.