In recent years, with the rapid growth of the RWA industry, the economic framework of the world is being segmented and restructured. The transformation progress of various industries such as Malu grapes and Dunhuang Cultural Tourism is being widely discussed, and amidst countless reports, we can summarize the following highlights and advantages:
1. Rewriting profit reach efficiency.
2. Cultural value achieves liquidity release through blockchain.
Past, present, and future, why does the RWA industry excite people? Is industrial transformation really as easy as those marketing accounts claim by relying on the RWA model? Can it truly segment the world into credible value units?
Let us enter the perspective of these successful cases, to look through the phenomena to the essence and analyze the infinite possibilities behind them.
01. From the perspective of Malu grapes, see how RWA reshapes value distribution rules.
In November 2024, leveraging the RWA model, Shanghai's Malu grapes completed an almost perfect and splendid industrial transformation. Bunches of grapes that might "rot on the ground" have been transformed into visualized data, packaged on-chain, and achieved financing of tens of millions.
The essence of the Malu grape project is to transform the silent physical elements in the agricultural supply chain into programmable digital assets, with its value reconstruction reflected in four key links:
1. Innovative paradigm of data assetization.
In traditional agriculture, grape sunlight and soil data are merely production records, while this project converts production process data (temperature, humidity, light intensity, soil pH, etc.) into tradeable digital assets through blockchain.
Data transitions from "information carriers" to "credit carriers." Real-time on-chain immutable data becomes the objective basis for financial institutions to assess asset value, addressing the core pain point of "information asymmetry" in agricultural financing.
2. Reconstruction of multi-party collaboration mechanisms
The project collaborates with the Shanghai Data Exchange, local governments, technology companies, farmers, asset evaluation agencies, etc., to form an "on-chain co-governance" ecosystem. Automatic distribution of returns through smart contracts (such as farmers receiving planting dividends and technology providers obtaining data service fees) resolves the traditional agricultural dilemma of "blurred value distribution" through coded rules.
3. Building a technological trust engine.
(1) Data on-chain: The entire production process is recorded on "Pudong Data Chain."
(2) Revenue on-chain: Sales revenue is automatically distributed to participants' wallets according to a preset ratio.
(3) Assets on-chain: The valuation of national geographical indication brands is converted into NFT certificates.
The "Data Asset Shell (DAS)" technology from the Shanghai Data Exchange tightly binds the quality of physical grapes with the value of on-chain tokens, allowing consumers to verify authenticity by scanning.
4. Breaking through agricultural financialization.
10 million yuan in financing is not based on "grape yield," but rather on a composite asset package of "data credit + brand premium."
More importantly, Malu grapes testify to this. They demonstrate to other industries how to build "interfaces for value conversion between the physical and digital worlds," opening a new door to "replicable," "implementable," and "diversified" traditional industry transformations.
For users, it provides a credibility certificate, as choosing the national geographical indication product "Malu grapes" is backed by its 40 years of brand accumulation, providing value support for on-chain assets and avoiding doubts about "air assets."
For the industry, forming a closed-loop value circulation design, the use of financing can clearly point to smart agriculture upgrades (such as intelligent irrigation systems), forming a positive cycle of "data enhances quality → quality strengthens brand → brand nourishes financing."
For the project party, project shares are registered and custodied at the Shanghai Equity Exchange Center, and certified through the "Equity Chain" to achieve on-chain and off-chain property mapping within the current legal framework, avoiding policy risks.
At the same time, small farmers can obtain token dividends by contributing planting data, addressing the issue where "weak," "small," and "scattered" entities in traditional agriculture cannot share the benefits of industrial value increases.
The value of a bunch of grapes is decomposed into quantifiable data units (light exposure duration, soil composition), maintaining traceability even after fragmentation. On-chain assets fluctuate in value with changes in the physical world's state (e.g., drought leading to increased sweetness of grapes triggering token premiums), achieving dynamic pricing.
At the same time, the cross-border trading system of RWA indirectly addresses the problems of closed sales channels for agricultural products and narrow value representation. In simple terms, agricultural products used to only connect with agricultural channels; inadequate connections or poor market conditions could lead to unsold products. The industry model of RWA allows products to break through geographical financial barriers, significantly enhancing profit reach.
Based on the Malu grape paradigm, we can boldly speculate that RWA will inevitably realize physical value reconstruction in other fields.
For example, the "liquidity fission" of manufacturing equipment, referencing the tokenization precedent of Greenland Group's hotel revenue rights, where sensors are added to machine tools to collect working hours/accuracy data, generating "equipment capability certificates" on-chain, which are split into tokens for global sale, significantly increasing equipment utilization.
Or engaging in dynamic pricing of carbon assets, deploying satellite remote sensing and soil sensors in forestry plots, with carbon sink growth data generating on-chain certificates in real time, which can be split into "carbon credit tokens" for trading, etc.
02. From the perspective of Dunhuang Cultural Tourism, see how RWA breaks down barriers between the virtual and real worlds.
The tokenization project for Dunhuang digital cultural relics has transformed millennia-old murals into flowing digital galaxies, driving cultural tourism revenue growth of over 200% year-on-year, with the industry undergoing a fundamental change in value release methods.
This project has built a closed-loop ecosystem of "physical consumption - digital rights confirmation - value circulation." It reconstructs the expression language of cultural value with blockchain—physical remnants of the world (cracks in murals, millennia-old dust) become gold in the digital world. To achieve the above goals, we must focus on these four significant choices.
1. Data assetization: From wall pixels to credible value units.
Dunhuang Cultural Tourism conducted millimeter-level precision scanning of Mogao Grottoes No. 285, collecting over 100,000 images for a single cave, with stitching errors controlled within 0.1 mm. Physical defects such as cracks in murals and signs of paint peeling have been accurately digitized, becoming anti-counterfeiting identifiers.
When tourists observe the "Bodhisattva's garment weathering patterns" through VR, these details become immutable proof of credit for on-chain assets, while simultaneously decomposing the entire cave into "tradeable knowledge units," for example, the pattern "Three Rabbits Sharing One Ear" in cave 407 is transformed into an independent NFT, allowing for fractional purchases.
This operation combines the scarcity of the physical world (millennia-old cultural relics) with the divisibility of the digital world, breaking the dilemma of cultural assets being "difficult to circulate."
2. Experience integration: Virtual and real interaction constructs a consumption-rights closed loop
"Exploring Dunhuang" immersive exhibition design features a three-layer penetrative experience, allowing RWA's expressiveness to resonate deeply with the audience:
Pre-purchase tickets through the mini-program to receive an NFT knowledge card pack (including clues for non-open caves), AR Jiuse Deer photo triggers a POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) certificate, on-chain synthesis of POAP exchanges for limited mural restoration fund tokens, sharing cultural product sales revenue.
The underlying logic is that tourists' physical consumption (ticket purchases, photo sessions) is transformed into on-chain behavioral data, automatically generating digital rights through smart contracts. This makes NFTs not just souvenirs, but also certificates of "cultural participation rights," allowing holders to vote on the next digital cave topic. It deepens tourists' sense of participation and connection in this cultural tourism spectacle.
This model upgrades cultural consumption from one-time transactions to a long-term value community, further validating users' willingness to pay for "sustained rights."
3. Open ecosystem: The dual-track engine for IP liquidity release.
On the on-chain platform, led by the official, the "Digital Dunhuang - Open Resource Library" has put 6,500 high-definition resources on-chain, adopting a tiered authorization mechanism, allowing scholars to freely access research materials, while creators can use tokens to commercialize images, with 5% of the revenue automatically shared with the copyright pool.
This initiative resolves the issue where the vast majority of non-top cultural relics cannot be commercialized under traditional models. Niche patterns (such as Northern Dynasties designs) can be adopted by designers, and the on-chain royalty mechanism allows "cold assets" to generate revenue. Meanwhile, materials are certified on the domestic alliance chain and reissued abroad through public chains, meeting the dual demands of data security and global circulation.
4. Infrastructure for technological trust: The three-chain integration architecture.
The domestic chain ensures the sovereignty of cultural relic data, while the foreign chain releases liquidity, with cross-chain error rate of <0.3%. After the clothing data of the Dunhuang virtual character "Jiayao" is put on-chain, a Korean game company calls for the development of skin modules, and the royalties can be settled instantly.
The Dunhuang project has achieved great success in the RWA track, which is essentially about penetrating industry barriers through three major rules, namely reconstructing the triangle of "value-trust-distribution":
Sensor data becomes a dynamic credit medium, replacing traditional mortgage guarantee models. For example, in the aforementioned Malu grape project, vineyards put soil pH values, light exposure durations, etc., on-chain, allowing investors to verify quality in real-time. The 10 million yuan raised is directed towards IoT equipment upgrades, forming a closed loop of "data enhances quality → quality nourishes financing."
Activating dormant consumption data into productive capital to achieve the transformation of the retail industry is reflected in various industry projects beyond Dunhuang Cultural Tourism, such as the "consumption points → investment certificates" system of the maternal and infant brand Alia Xiaoyou, where users scan to purchase milk powder and earn points, which can be exchanged for goods or converted into store revenue rights tokens, sharing regional sales revenue.
Through compliant cross-chaining, avoiding foreign exchange controls, financing costs have been significantly reduced. Similar enterprises, such as the new energy company Langxin Group, anchor their charging pile revenue rights, generating asset certificates domestically, converting them into STOs (security tokens) in the Hong Kong Ensemble sandbox, and attracting overseas funds for subscription, etc.
As the boundaries between physical assets and digital tokens begin to dissolve, the integration of RWA with traditional industries has shown a multidimensional infiltration trend. From the perspective of virtual and real integration, we can imagine that the future forms of RWA could exhibit sufficient diversity.
Like the "digital passport" revolution in the fashion industry, taking luxury goods as an example, embedding NFC chips in products, generating NFTs from production data (leather origin, craftsman ID) on-chain, verifying authenticity via scanning during second-hand transactions, with 1% of transaction value automatically shared with the original designer, and collectors staking NFTs to get priority purchasing rights for new brand products. This binds physical characteristics (leather texture) with on-chain ID, and copying becomes invalid.
For example, the "fan capitalization" of sports events, referencing the beauty pageant "Miss Universe" IP tokenization, where 50% of ticket revenue is packaged as an RWA asset package, fans receive tokens upon purchasing tickets, and subsequent endorsements by contestants trigger smart contract dividends, with tokens redeemable for signed photos and front-row seats at fashion weeks. This transforms fans from consumers into co-owners of the IP.
Conclusion:
When BlackRock CEO Larry Fink asserts that "the next generation of financial markets will be built on a tokenized basis," he reveals not only a technological trend but also the underlying logic shift of global capital flow.
In Banshan Village, Huangshan, 83% of traditional buildings have been revitalized through NFT certificates, creating a 57% repeat visit rate and achieving a "non-scenic spot" operational miracle. The 2000 sets of filming equipment in Hengdian World Studios have been split into quarterly tokens, with smart contracts automatically executing the revenue sharing for maintenance parties, insurance institutions, and investors.
The essence of RWA largely reconstructs the trust mechanism of value exchange, paving new paths in areas where traditional trust mechanisms have failed. When factories, vineyards, and even beauty pageant crowns gain digital avatars on-chain, the asset boundaries between the physical world and the digital world are gradually dissolving. The future winners will certainly belong to those pioneers who first segment the world into credible value units.