At the end of 2024, Shanghai Zuoan Xinhui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. launched the first agricultural industry RWA project in the mainland, Malu Grape RWA, and completed 10 million yuan of equity financing. Malu Grape is the first shot of the real RWA in the mainland, allowing many companies that are waiting to see the possibility of RWA from concept to implementation.
The Crypto Salad team has been working on the RWA project recently, and we have noticed that everyone is curious about:
What exactly is the Malu Grape product? How can we buy it? Is it worth buying?
Can “Malu Grape” products be circulated in the secondary market? How is the transaction situation?
How was the “Malu Grape RWA” project done? What is its infrastructure?
Under the legal red line that prohibits virtual currency exchange and token issuance financing in the mainland, what is the compliance path for Malu Grapes?
Is there anything worth referring to in the “Malu Grapes” project?
In order to have a more complete understanding of the characteristics of the Malu Grape RWA project, the Crypto Salad team decided to personally purchase and transfer the digital assets of Malu Grape, and introduce the details and innovations of this product to everyone through a survey from the perspective of consumers. If the content of this article deviates from the actual situation of the project party, please correct it.
1. From grapes to NFT, what exactly is this project selling?
1. What exactly is this product?
Malu Grape, the first agricultural digital asset, was officially publicly issued by Zuoan Xinhui (Shanghai) Data Technology Co., Ltd. on November 25, 2024. Users can only buy and sell it on the Shanghai Data Exchange Digital Asset Trading Platform.
(The above picture shows the basic product information of Malu Grape digital assets)
The project was sold out soon after its release, so there is only a secondary trading market. According to our observation, the price of Malu Grape digital assets in the secondary trading market ranges from 500-5500 yuan, showing a polarized trend, but the mainstream price range is around 1000 yuan. But when we look at the recent transaction data, we find that the recent transaction prices are concentrated around 600 yuan. Compared with the initial market pricing of 99 yuan, the current transaction price does achieve a certain premium space, but from a dynamic perspective, it can still be clearly felt that the popularity of Malu Grape digital assets has slowly declined, and the high point of crazy speculation is gone, replaced by a more prudent value assessment.
(The above picture shows the sales of Malu Grape digital assets in the digital trading market)
In the process of trading Malu Grape digital assets, we also noticed that the project party has set clear restrictions on the trading time: after December 8, 2025, the digital assets will not be circulated, and the holders will only be given one year to trade. We did not find a corresponding answer as to why a countdown is set for the transaction. However, it is foreseeable that before the expiration of the one-year period, there will definitely be a scenario where holders sell off in a concentrated manner, and the value of digital assets will face relatively large market fluctuations.
In addition, when the exchange of physical rights is successful, the digital assets will be written off by the project party and cannot continue to circulate in the trading market. The holder can still enjoy the qualification to use the interactive space of Malu Planet. During the purchase process, we have been trying to find clearer liability clauses, and want to know how the rights of the holders will be protected after the digital assets are destroyed. We might as well make a bold assumption that if there is force majeure or an unexpected event, such as a vineyard being burned down, resulting in the inability to exchange physical rights, how should the project party compensate? But we have not yet received a clear answer from public channels and the purchase process.
In summary, the price of each digital asset issued by the project party is different, and combined with its core features such as indivisibility and unique on-chain identification, we can judge that the digital assets issued by the project party are actually a kind of non-homogeneous digital collection (NFT). For more analysis on this point, please see Chapter 3 of this article.
2. What rights and interests can holders obtain? Where do the rights and interests come from?
The feature of the RWA project is to anchor the underlying assets to the token value. In other words, the rights and interests of token holders often come directly from the underlying assets, and the Malu Grape RWA project is no exception.
The underlying assets of the Malu Grape RWA project are the integration of agricultural products and agricultural product production data. Among them, agricultural products are Malu grapes provided by the Malu Professional Grape Cooperative; agricultural product production data mainly includes various types of data in the grape production process, such as farmer data production data, environmental data, collection data, supervision data, and unstructured data in grape growth in the grape planting area.
According to the product introduction of Malu Grape digital assets, users who purchase digital assets can obtain a portfolio of rights and interests under the underlying asset mapping, including a basic interest and a growth interest.
The basic benefit is a grape pick-up card worth 200-300 yuan provided by the Malu Grape Professional Cooperative;
Growth rights refer to the qualifications to participate in the Mulu Planet agricultural interactive space.
In addition, the project team also provides a surprise benefit similar to an airdrop to the top 50 buyers in terms of transaction amount within the specified time, which is a Malu grape pick-up card.
(The above picture shows the rights and interests of holders of Malu Grape digital assets)
By analyzing the correspondence between underlying assets and user rights, we found that the value of the physical assets of the Malu Grape RWA project is relatively fixed, so its appreciation space is relatively limited. The agricultural production data package is the one that has the greatest added value.
Through our personal experience, users can monitor the growth of grapes in the Malu Grape Plantation in real time on the interactive space of Malu Planet. Through the mini-game, they can sow, pick, and sell grapes. The gold coins obtained from the transaction will be automatically converted into points on the Gaoguangshike platform. The points can be exchanged for physical rewards provided by the project party after December 9, 2025. Crypto Salad tried to plant his own virtual grapes. He only needed to wait 24 hours to harvest the fruits and exchange them for gold coins. Unfortunately, we have never been able to successfully open the surveillance video. I wonder if there are friends who have successfully opened it to share.
(Left: Digital asset transaction quantity ranking; Middle: Virtual grape cultivation; Right: Gold coin ranking)
However, if measured by the standards of financial products, this platform still has a clear value gap. First, the points system is not clearly linked to the intrinsic profit mechanism of digital assets. The digital assets held by users cannot be appreciated through point redemption, and their rights and interests are strictly limited to the category of consumption rewards. Secondly, the operations that users can perform on the digital platform are relatively limited. Planting grapes in the virtual space does not mean that a grape seed has been sown in the real world. The platforms interactive functions are limited to single operations, and there seems to be no two-way value creation scenario between users and physical assets.
It seems that the agricultural production data collected by the project has limited connection with the interactive space of Malu Planet. According to the information disclosed by the technical service provider of the project on its official website, these data will be mainly used for application scenarios such as grape traceability, bank lending, and crop insurance. So what we are more curious about is:
For individual digital asset holders, what value and function does the data collected by the project party have?
In addition, the project owner did not disclose the specific evaluation method or third-party certification report of the data asset value. How should we determine the actual value of the data asset package?
At the same time, in the current analysis of equity content, we have not yet seen a clear path to prove that holders can obtain dividends from the profits of digital assets. So how does the asset appreciation obtained from financing return to the holders?
We have not yet found a reasonable explanation for these questions through public channels. Perhaps, as the project continues to develop, more data and information will appear to answer our questions.
3. What did the project party gain from this process?
After talking about the rights of our holders, lets talk about the benefits of this project to the project party. When companies try RWA, they just want to obtain a series of benefits including financing through the act of issuing tokens, and increase the value of the underlying assets and even the company itself.
We can also summarize a clear value feedback path from the Malu Grape Project:
The project party uses airdrops and the blind box effect generated by randomly distributing basic and rare models to encourage users to buy more digital assets, thereby obtaining this part of the financing. The project party stated that the financing obtained by the project will be used for the construction of intelligent facilities at the Malu grape planting base and the transformation and upgrading of infrastructure.
At the same time, as a company providing agricultural data collection services, the project party Zuoan Xinhui can also gain added value in its digital services when more users join the Malu Planet digital platform. On this basis, the project partys influence is expanded with the help of advertising effects. The project party successfully completed the brand narrative upgrade through RWA practice. As the first agricultural RWA case in China, it has played the role of an industry benchmark. This path can be said to kill three birds with one stone. It not only obtains financing, but also feeds back to the project party and supports traditional agricultural assets.
4.What is the technical basis for asset chain?
According to official press releases and media reports, we learned that the Malu Grape digital assets were successfully put on the chain, relying on a complete blockchain technology ecosystem.
As mentioned above, the project owner Zuoan Xinhui is a company that specializes in data collection services. Combining the public information on the Internet, we can conclude that the project collects the physical growth data of grapes by deploying IoT technology, and then integrates the data information through Zuoan Xinhuis self-developed SwiftLink platform, using multi-chain same track AMC and data asset shell DAS technology for structured processing to form a tradable digital asset package.
From the perspective of technical compliance, we can find that the project party strictly follows the current regulatory framework: all on-chain operation data are simultaneously stored on the Pujiang Digital Chain data storage platform led by Shanghai Data Group to ensure the authenticity of the data.
Although the details of the SwiftLink platform and core technologies such as multi-chain AMC are limited in public channels, it is undeniable that it has achieved the on-chain of agricultural production data, and the data has also been stored in the Shanghai Data Exchange. Based on the state-owned holding background of the Shanghai Data Exchange, we believe that the existing technology can provide reliable technical support for the on-chain data of the RWA project.
2. How did Malu Grape raise RMB 10 million?
The successful financing of the Malu Grape RWA project is first and foremost due to the fact that they designed a complete compliance path.
We note that on October 31, 2023, Shanghai Zuoan Xinhui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Zuoan Investment Management Co., Ltd. injected RMB 10 million into the project party Zuoan Xinhui (Shanghai) Data Technology Co., Ltd., making it the special purpose vehicle (SPV) of the project, isolating the Malu Grape data asset package from Zuoan Xinhuis other businesses.
At the same time, as a financing entity, the SPV companys financing behavior is only related to the enterprise itself, and has no clear connection with the sale of digital assets, avoiding the risk of being identified as securitization. In addition, 100% of the project partys equity is entrusted to the Shanghai Equity Custody and Registration Center and stored on the Guyi Chain platform.
The Guyi Chain platform is a blockchain evidence storage platform independently developed by the Shanghai Data Exchange, focusing on providing digital rights confirmation and evidence storage services for equity, data assets, etc. Its core goal is to transform physical assets (such as equity) in traditional financial markets into verifiable and tamper-proof on-chain digital certificates through blockchain technology. In short, it is a platform that realizes the tokenization of equity on the chain.
(The above picture shows the equity structure of the Malu Grape RWA project)
In this process, we can find that the financing obtained by the Malu Grape project is different from the financing after the traditional RWA issues tokens.
In the traditional RWA financing model, after the project party completes the initial fundraising through token issuance, it usually needs to connect the token to the exchange for secondary market circulation and use the liquidity premium to achieve refinancing, forming a typical issuance-listing-refinancing path. In this model, the market circulation of tokens not only provides a continuous financing channel for the project party, but also dynamically binds the underlying asset value with the capital market.
However, Malu Grape had already completed 10 million yuan of equity financing before the issuance of digital assets. According to the information we can currently obtain from public channels, the project party only entrusted the shares and completed the tokenization of equity, but did not enter the public trading market. Perhaps because of this, the project party does not need to disclose the details of the financing, and we have no way of knowing more details of the financing, such as who is the financing target? What is the equity distribution? Where did the funds used by users to purchase digital assets go? What did the project party do with the funds? These are all questions that need to be answered.
In any case, the Malu Grape RWA project not only landed in compliance with regulations, but also successfully obtained 10 million yuan in equity financing, which undoubtedly brought good news to many companies. Although the project only publicly issued 2013 digital assets, based on the initial price of 99 yuan per digital asset, the total value that the project party can directly obtain from the sale of digital assets is less than 200,000 yuan. Due to the particularity of agricultural assets, the room for value-added is relatively limited. However, the equity financing obtained by the project is as high as 10 million yuan, which fully proves that the benefits generated by the current RWA project can provide enterprises with assets and development technologies to provide positive guarantees.
3. What is the difference between the Malu Grape Project and overseas RWA?
The Crypto Salad team has been deeply involved in the Web3 market in recent years. After an in-depth study of the relevant information of Malu Grape RWA, we can find that the Malu Grape RWA project is essentially very different from the overseas RWA projects:
1. Digital assets are not tokens
As mentioned above, the digital assets issued by the project party are actually a kind of non-homogeneous digital collectibles (NFT), which are very different from the RWA tokens issued overseas. The main feature of NFT is that each NFT is unique and indivisible, and its value is determined by the uniqueness of specific metadata, which is clearly different from homogeneous virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. In the Malu Grape RWA project, each digital asset is prohibited from circulation after being exchanged for physical assets. It does not have the attributes of re-trading and re-circulation, and does not have the function of an interchangeable value medium.
The Malu Grape RWA project is also different from overseas RWA projects in terms of token value recognition. We have already mentioned the logic of overseas RWA projects issuing tokens for financing in the previous article. Here we will talk in detail about how tokens can bring benefits to holders.
In mainstream RWA practices overseas, token holders can substantially obtain the share ownership of the underlying assets or the right to structured income distribution through the smart contract confirmation mechanism. The funds raised by the project party through the issuance of tokens are usually invested in the development and operation of the underlying assets or the allocation of diversified investment portfolios, and the value-added goals are achieved through the improvement of asset operation efficiency and market value growth. In this process, tokens, as a value transmission medium, feed back the income generated by the underlying assets to the holders in the form of on-chain dividends, token destruction deflation, equity repurchase, etc. through the preset on-chain distribution rules.
(The above picture is a simplified diagram of the overseas RWA architecture)
However, the Malu Grape RWA project is issued in the form of NFT, and holders only obtain the right to exchange for physical goods (grape pick-up cards) and the qualification to participate in the digital platform (game points exchange rewards). Its value is anchored in the consumption attributes of agricultural products and the right to use data services, rather than asset ownership or income rights. It is essentially a de-financialization compliance design.
The Shanghai Digital Asset Trading Platform also strictly controls the initiation of transactions and the number of holdings: users who hold more than 5% of all tradable digital assets can only sell one at a time, and need to wait 5 trading days after the transaction is successful before they can continue to sell until the number of holdings drops below 5%. This method limits large-scale selling, prevents crazy speculation of digital assets, and limits the value-added space of digital assets from the perspective of reducing liquidity.
In short, holders of Malu Grape digital assets cannot directly enjoy the benefits brought by the appreciation of underlying assets through digital assets. In fact, they still own a physical pick-up card of Malu Grape and an admission ticket to the digital interactive space.
We believe that the design of Malu Grape products is closely related to the legal environment in mainland China. The design of the RWA framework must be rooted in the real legal soil. According to my countrys current regulatory framework, virtual currency-related business activities, such as issuing virtual currency or issuing tokens for financing, are still classified as illegal financial activities and are strictly prohibited. Violators are at risk of triggering criminal liability.
Under this regulatory framework, since domestic laws do not prohibit the issuance of digital collections, the Malu Grape RWA project chose this issuance method, which also provides a reference for other companies to follow in terms of compliance paths:
Enterprises must clearly define the attributes of issued virtual assets. If they issue digital collectibles, they must strictly follow technical standards that require them to be indivisible and non-circulating, so that they can form clear legal boundaries with homogeneous virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
At the same time, digital collections should avoid having the attributes of financial products and should not include financial assets such as securities and insurance. In addition, they should be traded through compliant trading platforms, and data and equity should be officially recorded.
This prudent product design strategy is not only an active exploration of market innovation space, but also a necessary respect for legal regulatory red lines.
2. Different nature of exchanges
The intermediary for the issuance of Malu Grape RWA is the Shanghai Data Exchange. Overseas virtual asset exchanges usually conduct business as licensed financial institutions, while the establishment of the Shanghai Data Exchange strictly follows the regulatory requirements of the Interim Measures for the Implementation of the Management of Data Trading Venues in Shanghai and must be established after special approval by the municipal government. Its business boundaries are clearly limited to the scope of data circulation services, forming an institutional distinction from financial asset transactions.
In terms of the technical architecture of the exchange, overseas virtual asset exchanges generally rely on decentralized networks to operate, while the Shanghai Data Exchange adopts a centralized governance model, and its system node settings must be subject to the overall management of government departments. Taking the Malu Grape RWA project as an example, the implementation path of equity tokenization requires dual compliance guarantees: the project party must first complete the title registration of the target equity with the registration and custody institution under the Shanghai Equity Custody and Trading Center, and then realize the equity on the chain through the blockchain evidence platform Guyi Chain. This progressive design of physical assets-legal registration-on-chain evidence not only continues the regulatory logic of the traditional financial market, but also defines a verifiable compliance boundary for digital technology innovation.
Although the intermediary institutions of the Malu Grape RWA project are quite different from those of overseas models, it is essentially an important attempt to explore the feasibility of RWA within the existing regulatory framework, and to build a localized compliance channel for RWA projects in the mainland. This practice fully proves that under the current legal framework of the mainland, RWA is not impossible, but needs to be redefined in a way that is more suitable for local regulatory logic. The significance of the Malu Grape project lies not only in exploring the way for agricultural assets, but also in providing a replicable regulatory-friendly paradigm for the development of RWA in the mainland.
4. Introduction to the purchasing process: How do retail investors purchase Malu Grape RWA products now?
If any readers want to buy Malu Grape RWA products now, please refer to the following purchase process:
1) Log in to the Digital Asset Trading Market to complete the registration, answer the knowledge questions, and enter the market.
2) Complete real-name authentication in the digital trading market.
3) Register on the distribution platform - Gaoguangshike, and complete identity authentication.
4) Register for Sunde Wallet, complete identity authentication, and bind your bank card.
5) Get the invitation code and complete the purchase.
5. What industry effects can Malu Grape RWA bring?
Under the wave of deep integration of digital economy and real economy, the Malu Grape RWA project has created a successful example for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. This attempt is not only a successful exploration of mainland enterprises approaching RWA projects, but will also stimulate multiple positive demonstration effects inside and outside the industry.
The Malu Grape RWA project can provide a replicable digital template for a large number of silent traditional assets. The breaking circle experience of Malu Grape can also provide a reference for traditional Chinese time-honored brands and even intangible cultural heritage. Maybe in the near future, we can see RWA projects for regional specialty products such as Qibao mutton, Nanxiang Xiaolongbao, and even Suzhou embroidery. Through the RWA framework, leveraging smart contracts and cross-chain interactions, while increasing brand premium, we can build a win-win ecology of cultural heritage and commercial value.
Shanghai also provides a unique soil for this type of innovation. We believe that Shanghai is the most suitable city in the country for exploring RWA projects. As a pioneer in the domestic digital economy, Shanghai has taken the lead in laying out the blockchain market and proposed an implementation plan for promoting the citys blockchain digital infrastructure system project from 2023 to 2025, providing both policy and technical support for the RWA project.
After successively issuing licenses to virtual asset exchanges, Hong Kong is about to release its second virtual asset policy declaration. With its status as an international capital hub and an open virtual asset business environment, Hong Kong is becoming a bridge connecting high-quality mainland assets with global investors.
The linkage between Shanghai and Hong Kong and the collaboration between the two cities not only help local assets go out, but also open up channels for international resources to come in. Crypto Salad has been deeply involved in the cross-border and overseas expansion of enterprises for many years. We believe that in the near future, we will be able to see the bright future of the RWA project more clearly. The attempt of Malu Grape is not only a microcosm of traditional agriculture embracing digitalization, but also draws a compliance red line for domestic RWA exploration. It may not be perfect, but every step it takes is paving the way for later generations.
Special statement: This original article only represents the personal views of the author of this article and does not constitute legal consultation and legal opinions on specific matters. If you need to reprint, please contact Crypto Salad.
