While the world remains fixated on the bull and bear cycles of cryptocurrencies, a deeper “value migration” is quietly unfolding. In March 2026, inside the Hong Kong Science Park, “Shucang China,” a leading Web3 company from the mainland, has just secured a new round of funding. Its executive team commutes daily between Shenzhen and Hong Kong through the Hetao “No. 1 Corridor.” At the same time, in Mato Grosso, Brazil, a Hong Kong-listed company is converting local gold reserves into on‑chain tokens. And among global developers’ API call records, Chinese AI models are using tokens as a medium to export local electricity and computing power to the world.
Token—a term once reserved for geeks and speculators—is becoming a new link between China and the world in the spring of 2026. It carries not only the cost of AI inference but also the exploratory mission of internationalizing renminbi‑denominated assets. This article analyzes the true picture of China’s token globalization from three dimensions: policy, computing power, and applications.
February 6, 2026, marks a notable date in China’s financial regulatory history. On that day, the People’s Bank of China and seven other departments jointly issued the “Notice on Further Preventing and Addressing Risks Related to Virtual Currency” (referred to as “Document No. 42”), while the China Securities Regulatory Commission concurrently released the “Regulatory Guidelines on the Overseas Issuance of Asset‑Backed Security Tokens by Domestic Assets” (referred to as “Order No. 1”).
These two documents clearly outline the core logic of Chinese regulators: “Strict prohibition at home, tight regulation abroad.”
On the mainland, virtual currency operations remain an untouchable red line. Whether Bitcoin, Ethereum, or stablecoins pegged to the renminbi, all are explicitly banned. Document No. 42 reiterates that any related business conducted within the mainland constitutes illegal financial activity and vows to crack down on any hype under the guise of RWA (real‑world assets). This decisive “one‑size‑fits‑all” approach aims to safeguard financial stability and monetary sovereignty, isolating potential financial risks outside the country’s borders.
However, on the cross‑border front, the policy has opened a crack. Order No. 1 historically provides a legitimate pathway for domestic assets to raise funds overseas through RWA tokenization. This means China’s real‑economy assets—from future revenue streams of charging stations to accounts receivable in supply chain finance—can be tokenized and compliantly financed in international markets. This is a sophisticated institutional design: risks are isolated abroad, while capital can still invigorate domestic entities.
Notably, on stablecoins, the policy maintains a cautious stance. Document No. 42 explicitly prohibits domestic entities from issuing renminbi‑pegged stablecoins overseas, which is seen as a move to prioritize the internationalization strategy of the digital renminbi (e‑CNY). China is attempting to build an orderly “going global” system centered on the central bank digital currency, supplemented by RWA tokenized financing, rather than ceding monetary issuance authority to algorithms.
If RWA represents the tokenized globalization of “assets,” then API calls driven by AI models represent the tokenized globalization of “resources”—and the latter has shown explosive momentum in 2026.
A vivid analogy is circulating in the industry: “China is turning electricity and computing power, through the intermediary of tokens, into globally purchasable digital services.”
In 2025, China’s total electricity consumption exceeded 10 trillion kilowatt‑hours for the first time, with the information transmission, software, and information technology services sector seeing particularly significant growth. In computing hubs such as Gui’an New Area, electricity flows continuously into data centers, driving GPUs to complete complex inference tasks, ultimately delivered to global developers via API interfaces. This is no longer traditional “product export,” but “computing power export.”
According to an official report from OpenRouter, in 2025 Chinese open‑source models saw a notable rise in global market share, capturing nearly 30% of total usage in some weekly windows. Chinese models such as Minimax, DeepSeek, and Kimi have secured important positions in overseas developers’ workflows. Every API fee paid by global developers buys not just the model’s answers, but also the stability and cost‑effectiveness of the underlying Chinese infrastructure.
The intrinsic driver of this model is the rise of AI agents. With tools like OpenClaw enabling agents to take over execution tasks—no longer just conversing, but breaking down tasks, calling tools, and running continuously—token consumption has grown exponentially. As tokens shift from being “phone charges” to “means of production,” cost sensitivity rises sharply. Leveraging solid engineering capabilities and relatively low computing costs, Chinese models have created a natural moat in price differences, attracting global workflows to migrate automatically.
In this wave of token globalization, Hong Kong plays an irreplaceable role as a “conversion plug.”
Given policy uncertainty on the mainland, numerous Web3 companies and talents from the mainland have adopted a strategy of “following water and grass”—moving south to Hong Kong. The case of Shucang China is illustrative. As a leading company that had accumulated extensive users and experience on the mainland, it eventually settled in the Hong Kong Science Park amidst regulatory uncertainty, not only securing international capital but also making its mark in international innovation and technology competitions.
Hong Kong’s advantage lies in its institutional certainty. The SAR government has made clear its policy direction of promoting the healthy and orderly development of virtual assets and Web3, successively rolling out regulatory guidelines and licensing systems. This gives companies a clear path to compliance and a predictable future. At the same time, as an international financial center, Hong Kong is naturally positioned to connect mainland assets with international capital.
Take the Conflux public chain, for example. It plans to participate in pilot issuances of offshore renminbi stablecoins under the Belt and Road Initiative, and has collaborated with AnchorX, Dongxin, Ping An, and other institutions, aiming to build a “digital highway” in cross‑border payments and RWA settlement. This exemplifies Hong Kong’s value as an offshore financial hub—leveraging the flexibility of “one country, two systems” to bridge high‑quality mainland assets with overseas liquidity and compliance frameworks.
Once policy gates opened, RWA implementation accelerated faster than many expected.
Within the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission’s sandbox, a tokenized project based on the revenue rights of mainland electric vehicle charging stations has already been successfully issued, providing a model for integrating green finance with digital assets. An even more emblematic case occurred in March of this year: Hong Kong‑listed company Star Chain Group announced an exclusive management agreement for an RWA tokenization project involving a Brazilian gold mine. The company is using Web3 technology to authenticate, fractionalize, and globally circulate real‑world assets—including gold reserves and mining rights—in South America.
This case illustrates another dimension of China’s token globalization: the combination of technological export and global asset allocation. Chinese companies are no longer merely using domestic assets to raise funds abroad; they are leveraging their experience in blockchain technology and digital asset management to participate in the tokenization of real‑world assets globally. This is not just capital going overseas, but also the export of digital asset infrastructure capabilities.
Looking ahead, the narrative of China’s token globalization will revolve around two main threads.
The first is the thread of technology and efficiency: the rise of the machine economy.
With the maturation of protocols like x402 (enabling machines to pay directly) and standards like ERC‑8183 (providing on‑chain contracting mechanisms for agents), economic interactions among AI agents will become more native and seamless. When machines begin to become the main actors in economic activity, tokens will naturally become the “world currency” for machine‑to‑machine settlement. Leveraging its deep strengths in manufacturing, computing infrastructure, and AI applications, China is well positioned to become the world’s largest “producer” and “consumer” of tokens in this wave of the machine economy.
The second is the thread of finance and policy: RMB internationalization 2.0.
Although the issuance of offshore renminbi stablecoins remains strictly restricted, through the RWA model, renminbi‑denominated assets have already begun to go global in tokenized form. In the future, with the popularization of the digital renminbi and improvements in cross‑border payment infrastructure, the renminbi may find new forms of existence on the blockchain. China is attempting to build a new cross‑border financial ecosystem with the digital renminbi as the settlement foundation, high‑performance public chains as the underlying infrastructure, and RWA as the asset content.
From the telegrams transmitted through submarine cables to today’s flow of AI computing power and digital assets measured in tokens, China’s role in global value flows is undergoing a profound transformation. At this juncture in 2026, token globalization presents a complex duality: on one hand, regulators are strictly guarding against risks; on the other, market forces are relentlessly pursuing efficiency.
Whether by tokenizing real‑world assets through Hong Kong’s compliant channels or by monetizing computing resources via API interfaces, Chinese companies are exploring a digital Silk Road distinct from traditional trade. Token is no longer just a technical term—it is becoming a new unit for measuring the global influence of China’s digital economy. Just as electricity drove the second industrial revolution, computing power and data are driving a new global division of labor—and in this division, China is striving to grasp the right to set the terms of value.