In recent years, the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) has attracted widespread attention from the global financial market as an innovative model combining blockchain technology with traditional finance. As an Asian financial center, Hong Kong has actively explored the RWA track and tried to seize the initiative through pilot projects such as tokenized green bonds. However, although Hong Kong has taken initial steps in the field of RWA, its development path is not smooth. At present, Hong Kong's RWA experiment faces three major difficulties. If the path is not reconstructed, it may be difficult to become an Asia-Pacific on-chain asset hub.
License bonus has not been realized, traffic is thin
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong has implemented the Virtual Asset Trading Platform (VATP) licensing system since June 2023, aiming to regulate the virtual asset market and attract global capital. As of June 2025, 10 exchanges in Hong Kong have obtained formal licenses, including HashKey Exchange, OSL, HKVAX, etc., and another 8 are still queuing for application. However, the license dividend has not been fulfilled as expected. Although the recent media confrontation between HashKey and OSL has put the Hong Kong virtual asset ecosystem in the spotlight, there are few bright spots in the market. Among the 10 licensed exchanges, only a handful of them have truly achieved traffic and depth, the secondary market trading activity is low, and the overall ecology presents an embarrassing situation of "having a license but no market".
The core reason for this dilemma is that Hong Kong's virtual asset market has not yet formed sufficient market depth and user base. Although the licensing system provides a guarantee for compliance, the lack of a diversified asset pool and a high-liquidity trading environment makes it difficult to attract institutional and retail investors to participate. If the license dividend cannot be converted into actual traffic, the attractiveness of Hong Kong's RWA ecosystem will be greatly reduced.
RWA tokenization stagnated
Hong Kong's exploration of RWA tokenization was once highly anticipated, and three pilot projects became iconic attempts. The first was the world's first tokenized green bond issued by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) in February 2023, with an amount of HK$800 million; the second was a HK$750 million green bond led by HSBC in 2024, issued in four currencies; and the third was a fixed-income product trial in the "Project Ensemble" sandbox in 2024. However, after the completion of these three non-standard corporate bonds, the process of Hong Kong's RWA tokenization stagnated.
The market's expectations for RWA were pushed to the top, but the reality was disappointing. The liquidity of the secondary market was seriously insufficient, and the tokenized assets were almost impossible to circulate, and the additional issuance plan was also suspended. The reason is that Hong Kong's RWA experiment focused too much on the single-threaded logic of "bond issuance = financing", ignoring the importance of secondary market liquidity and market education. In addition, the asset side is too narrow, limited to new energy bonds, and fails to cover diversified cash flow assets such as logistics, precious metals, and AI computing power; the cost of funds is high, the cost of US dollar financing exceeds 10%, and the project starts with 30 million US dollars, which makes it difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to participate. These factors have jointly made it difficult for the RWA tokenization pilot to continue to advance.
Licensed platforms have a hard time surviving
Hong Kong's licensed virtual asset exchanges should be an important pillar of the RWA ecosystem, but they are currently facing a survival dilemma. Most platforms can only rely on over-the-counter (OTC) business to barely maintain operations due to the lack of core trading volume, but the income is negligible. The business model based on OTC is difficult to support the long-term development of the platform, and it is even more difficult to provide sufficient liquidity support for RWA tokenization.
The high cost of funds has further exacerbated the platform's predicament. At present, Hong Kong RWA projects generally face the problem of US dollar financing costs exceeding 10%, and the project start-up capital is as high as 30 million US dollars, which is far beyond the affordability of small and medium-sized enterprises. This high threshold not only limits the diversity of the asset side, but also greatly reduces the participation of the capital side. If the licensed platform cannot break through the survival dilemma, the sustainable development of the Hong Kong RWA ecosystem will be out of the question.
The way out for RWA in Hong Kong
Faced with the above three difficulties, Hong Kong RWA must reconstruct its development path in order to occupy a place in the global competition. First, it is necessary to break the single-threaded thinking of "issuing bonds = financing", expand the asset side to a diversified pool, including logistics, precious metals, agricultural assets, etc., reduce the cost of the capital side, and lower the financing threshold by establishing an offshore RWA master fund and introducing Hong Kong dollar stablecoins. Secondly, build a multi-level market structure: mainland asset packaging, Hong Kong primary issuance, Singapore or Dubai secondary liquidity, on-chain DeFi opens retail traffic, and forms a cross-domain positive cycle of funds and assets. In addition, consolidating infrastructure is the key. Hong Kong needs to develop Layer 2 public chains, HKD stablecoins and compliant custody systems to create a 7×24 settlement network.
Conclusion
The Hong Kong RWA experiment has not failed, but the three major difficulties it currently faces - unrealized license dividends, stagnant RWA tokenization, and difficult survival of licensed platforms - indicate that the single-threaded path has reached a bottleneck. Only by reconstructing the path, returning to infrastructure construction, deepening the institutional market, and magnifying offshore advantages can Hong Kong transform from a "follower" to an "Asia-Pacific on-chain asset hub" and truly deepen and expand the RWA story.
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