On February 6, the People's Bank of China, in conjunction with eight ministries, issued a notice (on preventing and dealing with risks of virtual currencies and RWA tokenization) (i.e., 'Document No. 42'), which not only reiterated the ban on virtual currencies but also for the first time clearly included 'RWA (Real World Assets) tokenization' in the category of illegal financial activities, strictly prohibiting domestic institutions from engaging in such businesses. For a time, the exploration of RWA in the mainland market seemed to have been pressed to the stop button.
However, just four days later on February 10, at the '2026 Asia Crypto Finance High-Level Closed-Door Forum' held in Hong Kong, Fosun Wealth Holdings' FinChain announced a deep strategic partnership with Avalanche and officially issued an interest-bearing stablecoin based on Asian compliant assets—FUSD.
On one side is the high wall built by the mainland, and on the other side is the bridge erected by Hong Kong. This striking narrative of a "dual city" reveals the true picture of digital finance in Asia in 2026: traditional institutions are trying to complete a liquidity revolution of trillions of dormant assets through a combination of "offshore + technology" in the gaps of compliance.
Farewell to the "Interest-Free Era": The generational leap of institutional stablecoins.
In the past five years, the stablecoin market has been dominated by USDT and USDC. They have solved the problem of "transaction media," but left a huge pain point—the waste of capital efficiency. Against the backdrop of the Federal Reserve maintaining high rates, holding traditional stablecoins means giving up a risk-free yield of 4%-5% annually, which is an unacceptable "cash drag" for cost-conscious institutional investors.
On this day in 2026, the market has already undergone a generational leap. What we see is no longer a simple "fiat currency mapping," but "asset packaging."
Taking the FUSD issued by FinChain on Avalanche as an example, it represents the typical structure of a new generation of "yield-bearing stablecoins." Rather than calling it a token, it is more accurate to say it is a tokenized money market fund (MMF) with T+0 settlement capability. Its underlying assets are directly linked to government bonds and short-term bills managed by top institutions like BNY Mellon, China Asset Management (Hong Kong), and Taikang Asset.
The brilliance of this design lies in the fact that it does not create new assets but liberates the liquidity of existing assets. For family offices and private equity funds, capital no longer needs to choose between "interest-bearing bank accounts" and "liquid on-chain wallets." Through FUSD, a single capital can enjoy both the yield of off-chain government bonds and the composability of on-chain DeFi.
The deeper meaning of technology selection: Why is it #Avalanche ?
In Fosun's case, not only is the choice of assets intriguing, but the focus on technology is also quite meaningful. FinChain did not choose the Ethereum mainnet, which is the most liquid but congested, but opted for Avalanche as its launchpad.
This is not a coincidence. As RWA moves from "testing ground" to "deep water zone," institutions' requirements for infrastructure have shifted from mere "decentralization" to "certainty."
Avalanche's subnet architecture and C-Chain's sub-second finality precisely hit the most sensitive nerve of institutions—settlement risk. In traditional cross-border payments, the T+2 settlement cycle means two days of exchange rate exposure and counterparty risk; while on Avalanche, FUSD's settlement is compressed to sub-second.
As FinChain CEO Zhao Chen said, "What we want to build is not just a token, but a standardized financial asset track." On this track, Avalanche provides not only speed but also the "compliance Lego" capability that meets regulatory requirements—such as on-chain native integrated KYC/AML (anti-money laundering) screening, which is difficult for traditional DeFi protocols to achieve.
The regulatory "dual-track system": risk isolation and offshore prosperity.
Returning to the regulatory "dual city" mentioned at the beginning of the article. The latest "Document No. 42" from mainland China and the first batch of "stablecoin issuer licenses" to be issued by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in the first quarter of 2026 seem contradictory, but actually form a subtle complement.
The strict prohibition from the mainland is essentially a physical isolation of financial risk. Without regulation, RWA tokenization can easily evolve into illegal asset securitization or Ponzi schemes, posing significant risks in the mainland market with many retail investors. In contrast, Hong Kong is assigned the role of a "regulatory sandbox" and "offshore gateway."
Fosun's FUSD actually provides a perfect observation sample: capital with a mainland background, utilizing Hong Kong's legal framework, issues assets on overseas public chains, ultimately serving global liquidity.
This model effectively cuts off the path of risk transmission to the mainland while preserving the opportunity for Chinese institutions to participate in the global digital asset pricing power. Not only Fosun, but also the Toyota Blockchain Lab and SMBC in Japan and Woori Bank in South Korea are adopting similar strategies—utilizing high-performance chains like Avalanche for RWA layout in offshore or controlled environments.
Of course, as professional financial practitioners, we cannot only look at one side of the coin. As the scale of RWA assets like FUSD expands, new financial stability issues emerge.
When tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of traditional financial assets (government bonds, bills) are mapped onto a blockchain that trades 24/7, liquidity mismatch will become the biggest hidden danger. The on-chain market is available for instant clearing around the clock, while the off-chain bond market still follows working days and T+1 settlement. Once a large-scale run occurs on-chain, can off-chain assets be liquidated in a timely manner through fiat channels during weekends or holidays?
This is a "stress test" question that all RWA issuers must answer. The future regulatory focus will undoubtedly shift from merely "entry licenses" to penetrating regulation of issuers' underlying asset liquidity management capabilities.
Looking back at the early spring of 2026, RWA is no longer a game of self-entertainment for Web3 natives, but an ark for traditional finance's self-redemption.
Fosun's move on Avalanche is just a microcosm of this grand migration. It signifies that Asian institutional capital is transforming from "bystanders" to "builders." Although the regulatory wall remains high, bridges like FUSD have already been erected. For financial practitioners, understanding the structure of this bridge may mean understanding the asset flow of the next decade.
In this transformation, only those who understand both Wall Street rules and blockchain code can truly capture the alpha of the era.