Two-way journey between crypto market and traditional capital market

The global crypto market is undergoing a drastic transformation from “wild growth” to “compliance and mainstreaming”. The limitations and difficulties exposed by the traditional “decentralized foundation” model in real business can no longer be ignored and covered up.In this context,“Two-way rushing” between listed companies and crypto ecosystemBecoming the key to breaking the deadlock, real-world asset tokenization (RWA) serves as a settlement medium to further open up the value link between the crypto market and traditional finance.

Compliance shift in the crypto industry

Early crypto projects took “decentralized collaboration” as their core label and mostly relied on the “foundation model”.However, as the industry scale expands, the contradictions in this model gradually become prominent: the foundation’s non-profit attributes have a natural conflict with the profit needs of entrepreneurial teams, and the decision-making efficiency of decentralized organizations (DAOs) is difficult to match the fast pace of the commercial market, and the stricter global regulation has made “compliance” an inevitable proposition.

In this context, the linkage between listed companies and crypto assets (“coin-share linkage”) has become a new direction of exploration.On the one hand, traditional listed companies are eager to find new growth curves through crypto asset allocation; on the other hand, crypto projects hope to achieve large-scale development with the help of listed companies’ compliant identity and capital channels..The integration of the two is not an accidental business attempt, but an inevitable result of the industry’s evolution from “wild growth” to “compliance and mainstreaming”.

This “two-way rushing” trend has been implemented in many places, forming a replicable practical path.

Two-way trip: The integration practice of traditional capital and crypto ecology

(I) Traditional listed companies: actively embrace crypto assets and open up new space for growth

Globally, “listed companies allocate cryptocurrencies” has evolved from individual cases to a scale paradigm.Data in July 2025 showed that at least 116 listed companies around the world publicly disclosed their holdings of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin; just one month later, this number increased to 142, with nearly 100 new companies in half a year.The core logic behind it is: crypto assets such as Bitcoin have outperformed traditional assets with a return on investment of 99.99% over the past decade, becoming an important option to fight inflation and optimize asset allocation.

1. MicroStrategy: “Bitcoin Faith”-driven positive loop

US listed companies are the benchmark for this trend.Its founder is known as a “firm Bitcoin supporter”. The company currently holds about 620,000 to 630,000 Bitcoins, making it the listed company with the largest number of Bitcoins in the world.The core of its business model is the positive cycle of “low-cost financing – increased holdings of Bitcoin – asset appreciation – refinancing”:

• Obtain low-cost funds through the issuance of low-interest bonds, transferable equity and other tools;

• Buying Bitcoin on a large scale will drive market demand and price increase;

• After Bitcoin increases its value, it obtains more funds through additional stock issuance, pledge financing, etc., and further increases its holdings.

Although the market is concerned that this model has “bubble risks”, according to financial data, the low-interest financing instruments issued by the strategy have a long term and low cost, which is enough to support the company’s stable operation for decades, and the security of its business model is sustainable at the current stage.

2. Boya Interactive: A sample of Web3 transformation of Hong Kong stock companies

Unlike the strategy, the transformation of Hong Kong-listed company Boya Interactive is more of the integration characteristics of “traditional business + Web3”.As a company that originally focused on overseas games, Boya Interactive announced a strategic transformation of Web3 in 2023, with the goal of becoming a “leading Web3 project company”:

• In terms of funding, not only rely on external financing, but also allocate Bitcoin with the cash flow generated by the game business; in 2025, it will also issue an additional HK$500 million to further expand its crypto asset reserves;

• Business layoutIn addition to Bitcoin reserves, it also invests in industry data platform RootData, participates in crypto funds, and integrates Web3 technology and GameFi gameplay into core game business.

The transformation effect is significant: before 2023, Boya Interactive’s market value was only about HK$400 million, and the stock trading volume was bleak; after the transformation, the trading volume increased by 50-100 times, and the market value increased by about 13 times.Compared with companies that bought coins in the early years, Boya Interactive’s case proves that “the deep integration of traditional businesses and Web3” is more valuable than simply configuring crypto assets.

In addition to enterprises, traditional financial institutions are also accelerating their entry.Nasdaq has applied to the US SEC to allow “tokenized stocks” to be traded on its exchanges, while investing in cryptocurrency exchanges, marking the shift of traditional capital markets’ recognition of the crypto field from “passive acceptance” to “active layout”.

(II) Encryption ecosystem: By using the capital market, we can achieve compliance and break the situation

In the past quarter, another major trend has gradually become clear: crypto projects have escaped the limitations of the “foundation model” through traditional capital paths such as “backdressing listing” and achieved compliance and large-scale development.The core logic is: acquire a listed company with a small market value and weakened main business, and inject crypto assets (tokens, technology IP, etc.) as capital increase funds to make it the core asset of the listed company; at the same time, divestiture the original non-main business, and ultimately form the dual attributes of “encryption project + listed company identity”, which not only solves compliance problems, but also improves asset liquidity.

1. Tron: “crypto benchmark” for backdoor listing

Tron is the representative of the earlier exploration of this model.After acquiring a listed company through overseas funds or investors, injecting crypto assets not only drives a sharp rise in the stock price of listed companies, but also allows tokens that were originally in the “gray zone” to obtain “listed company assets endorsement”, forming substantial benefits.The industry once joked: “Before February 2023, crypto traders were regarded as ‘edge players’; after the Bitcoin ETF was approved, everyone suddenly became ‘prestigious Nasdaq traders’.” This “identity change” is exactly the goal that crypto projects are eager to achieve through the capital market – from “niche” to “mainstream” and from “high risk” to “compliance”.

2. Sui project: a new attempt to link private equity and listing

Sui is a Web3 project founded by a core member of the former Libra team of Meta (formerly Facebook), focusing on gaming and payment tracks.Some time ago, the team raised US$450 million through private placement, repurchased its own tokens in large quantities at a price of about US$0.35 per coin, and promoted a listed company to increase its holdings of the token. In the past two weeks, the listed company has not only changed its name to highlight the attributes of Web3, but also continued to increase capital and expand shares to purchase more tokens, replicating the path of “asset injection + market value increase”.This combination model of “private equity funds + listed companies’ increased holdings” reduces the risk of a single entity and also provides more flexible capitalization options for crypto projects.

3. Treemap Blockchain: Exploration on Hong Kong Stock Compliance for Domestic Projects

Comflux is a more representative Web3 project in China. Relying on the “Shanghai Shutu Blockchain Research Institute”, the core team comes from the Yao class of Tsinghua University and has received support from local governments.Recently, Shutu plans to carry out exclusive cooperation with a Hong Kong listed company: inject its own tokens into the listed company, making it the operating entity of Shutu in Hong Kong stocks; at the same time, the core shareholders promised that “they will not reduce their token holdings in the next year” to enhance investors’ confidence.This attempt provides new ideas for domestic Web3 projects – within the compliance framework, through cooperation with traditional listed companies, connect with global capital market resources.

RWA: The third path connecting reality and virtuality

In addition to “stock and currency linkage”, real-world asset tokenization (RWA) is another key direction connecting traditional business with Web3.However, there is a clear separation in the industry’s understanding of RWA. In fact, RWA can be divided into three categories. The applicable scenarios and compliance logic are significantly different, and it needs to be viewed differently.

• Tokenization of traditional financial products: the most textured path to universal benefits

The core is to “encapsulate” traditional financial assets such as stocks, funds, bonds into tokens through blockchain technology, and achieve 7×24-hour transactions on the chain or compliant exchange.For example, tokenize the stocks of Tesla, Apple, or OpenAI’s unlisted equity, so that users who are subject to capital controls and inconvenient to open an account can hold high-quality global assets through on-chain operations.

The advantages of this model are: it not only expands the audience and sales channels of traditional financial products, but also does not change the nature of assets, and the compliance cost is relatively low.Currently, Hong Kong has compliant exchanges trying to tokenize money funds to attract on-chain users and institutions to participate, verifying their commercial feasibility.

• New Energy RWA (Hong Kong Model): Capital gameplay that tends to explore or PR attributes

This model takes stable income assets at home and abroad (such as charging piles and photovoltaic power stations) as the underlying layer, and packages their income rights into financial products (bonds or funds) and issuances to qualified investors overseas.Due to the interest gap at home and abroad, listed companies such as Ant, Langxin, and Xiexin New Energy have become the main participants in the past year.

But it needs to be viewed objectively: this type of model is more suitable for companies that have “marketing budgets and need capital market topics”.For non-listed companies, if they want to solve financing problems in this way, they may face problems such as high compliance costs and complex processes, and the cost-effectiveness is not high. They are more of the PR behavior of “using RWA concept to increase brand attention.”

• Non-financial RWA: “Lightweight Intro” Choice for SMEs

This type of RWA tends to be “pre-sale of goods” or “tokenization of member rights”, and the core is to obtain funds from the “customer/consumer” side rather than relying on shareholders or institutional investment.For example, converting product pre-sale rights and membership points into tokens can not only increase brand exposure, activate potential users, but also inject cash flow into business development.

This model is particularly optimistic: on the one hand, it does not touch the financial red line and has low compliance risks; on the other hand, it directly connects “business demand” and “user value”, without complex capital operations, and is the safest and most pragmatic path to Web3 for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Future trend: Dual-wheel drive of corporate currency stocks

With the development of “two-way rushing” and RWA, the organizational form and value distribution method of companies will undergo profound changes in the future – “dual-wheel drive of currency stocks” will become the mainstream choice, but it is completely different from the traditional perception of “issuing coins to raise funds and hyping up wealth”.

• Traditional equity:Solving the problems of “financing” and “long-term equity sharing” is aimed at shareholders and investors. The core function is to inject capital into the company’s development and allow investors to share long-term value growth, which is the “capital cornerstone” of the enterprise.

• Tokens (Tokens):Solve the problems of “ecological collaboration” and “user value sharing”, aimed at consumers and upstream and downstream partners of the industry, and the forms can include digital collections, points tokenization (such as AMT), etc. The core positioning is “welfth, airdrop, value sharing tool”, rather than financing carriers.

The case of Hong Kong HashKey Group is very representative: the ecological points (HSK) it issues does not have financing attributes and is only used for market linkage with partners and employee rewards; more importantly, the group takes out 20% of its profits to repurchase HSK every year, allowing point holders (users, employees, partners) to indirectly enjoy ecological value-added, similar to the effect of “virtual shareholders” or “equity incentive pool”.

In short, equity solution “where does money come from” and token solution “who is the value assigned to” complement each other and together form the value system of the future company, which not only retains the stability of traditional capital, but also has the flexibility of the Web3 ecosystem.