Yunfeng Financial is leveraging its robust balance sheet and strategic Ethereum reserves to transform physical assets into digital financial instruments aimed at professional investors in Hong Kong.
<h4>Key Points:</h4>
<ul>
<li>Yunfeng Financial has launched a digital token backed by physical gold on its &#34;Yunfeng Youyu&#34; platform, targeting professional investors in Hong Kong.</li>
<li>The company is utilizing the capital reserves from its core insurance business to promote a new model that converts physical gold into liquid financial assets.</li>
</ul>
Liang Wuren
As the founder of Alibaba and a company supported by China's e-commerce legend Jack Ma, Yunfeng Financial Group Limited (0376.HK) may be the most familiar. However, this insurance company is now attempting to establish its position through a low-profile strategic layout and carve out an attractive new niche in the vast and rapidly growing digital asset market.
Last Thursday, the insurance company launched a digital token backed by physical gold bars for use by professional investors in Hong Kong. Each token represents 1 gram of gold with a purity of 99.99% and is stored in a high-security vault in Hong Kong. However, the company has not yet opened secondary market trading for this virtual asset. This plan utilizes the blockchain infrastructure provided by AlphaToken, led by Jiang Guofei, the former head of the digital technology department at Ant Group.
Yunfeng Financial has kept a low profile regarding this launch, having neither issued an exchange announcement beforehand nor conducted large-scale media promotions, quietly adding the product to its &#34;Yunfeng Youyu&#34; platform.
For Yunfeng Financial, which has a market capitalization of over $1 billion and is primarily supported by Jack Ma, this token is the latest and perhaps most representative piece in the company's vast layout. It indicates that Yunfeng Financial is attempting to establish a complete product system centered around tokenization, virtual assets, and decentralized network infrastructure to seize the increasingly open development trend of digital assets in Hong Kong.
Entering the asset tokenization market marks the latest step in the company's transformation from a boutique investment bank and securities broker to a technology-oriented financial services company. The company's history dates back to the 1980s when it was known as Wansheng Securities. After experiencing business turbulence and restructuring, the company was renamed Ruido Group in 2011 and was acquired by Yunfeng Fund four years later. Yunfeng Fund was co-founded by Jack Ma and Yu Feng, the founder of Focus Media and a pioneer in elevator advertising.
Since the change of ownership, Yunfeng Financial has gradually expanded into insurance underwriting, which has become its core business. This not only significantly changed the company's business model but also accumulated substantial assets due to premium income, strengthening its balance sheet. This type of insurance &#34;float&#34; allows the company to have ample funds that can be flexibly used for long-term investments and technology-related layouts.
Yunfeng Financial's gold tokenization plan has actually been in the works for some time. In September last year, the company purchased $44 million worth of Ethereum as a strategic reserve asset. Due to the extreme volatility of cryptocurrency prices, this investment had drawn attention from some investors at the time, as it could bring higher volatility to the company's balance sheet
<h4>On-chain Transaction Fees</h4>
However, in light of Yunfeng Financial's new tokenization business, this investment appears to be more strategically significant. To issue physical gold-backed digital tokens on the Ethereum network, transfer them to clients, or provide cryptographic proof to verify that the relevant digital assets are indeed backed by physical gold stored in vaults, Yunfeng Financial must use Ether to pay for the necessary &#34;on-chain transaction fees&#34; (Gas fee). Therefore, holding a large reserve of Ether allows Yunfeng Financial to have sufficient &#34;fuel&#34; for gold token transactions without constantly purchasing cryptocurrency at fluctuating prices in the open market.
Before entering the tokenization and virtual asset market, Yunfeng Financial had already completed its regulatory layout in advance. In September last year, at the same time it disclosed the purchase of Ether, the company also expanded its securities trading license to include virtual asset trading services.
Yunfeng Financial's choice of gold as the first tokenized asset is quite timely. Driven by central banks increasing their holdings and investors seeking to hedge against inflation and geopolitical risks, gold prices are currently experiencing a historic upward trend. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is actively striving to become a core hub of this trend. The Hong Kong government plans to significantly increase local gold storage capacity by 13 times to 2,000 tons by 2028 to promote the development of related industries, including gold tokenization.
On the other hand, the People's Bank of China issued guidelines again in February this year, prohibiting the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) in mainland China. Therefore, developing related businesses in Hong Kong and targeting local professional investors as the main customer base appears to be strategically reasonable for Yunfeng Financial, as it aligns with Hong Kong's push for the development of gold and digital assets while leveraging the close ties between Hong Kong and mainland investment circles.
Moreover, the commodity tokenization market, primarily focused on gold, is rapidly heating up because it can digitize bulky and illiquid physical assets, allowing investors to trade around the clock while the physical gold remains securely stored in vaults. According to data from blockchain analytics firm CoinGecko, the total value of tokenized commodities globally is expected to nearly triple year-on-year to USD 5.5 billion by the first quarter of 2026. Even more astonishingly, the trading volume of tokenized gold spot transactions reached USD 90.7 billion in the first three months of this year, surpassing the total trading volume for the entire year of 2025.
Through its gold tokenization business, Yunfeng Financial can not only generate recurring income from custody and token issuance services but also allow institutional clients to use physical gold tokens as collateral for lending and on-chain wealth management, thereby opening up new profit models. In the future, the company can further leverage related technologies and experience to develop tokenized asset trading and even promote the tokenization of other real-world assets.
However, Yunfeng Financial is not the only company entering the asset tokenization market. It is actually stepping into a competitive battlefield already occupied by large global financial institutions.
For example, HSBC Holdings (0005.HK; HSBA.L) launched retail gold token products in Hong Kong as early as 2024 and last month collaborated with Hang Seng Investment Management to launch a physical gold tokenized exchange-traded fund (ETF)
One possible differentiation direction for YUNFENG FIN is to leverage its connection with Ant Group to establish a more flexible and technology-oriented platform, integrating the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.
Driven by its core insurance business and cost control strategies, YUNFENG FIN's financial condition is currently quite robust. Last year, the company's net profit surged over 39% to HKD 653 million (USD 83 million), with insurance revenue growing by 9.9% during the same period. By the end of 2025, the net cash flow generated from the company's operating activities is also expected to increase by 63% year-on-year to HKD 1.6 billion.
Despite strong performance and entry into the asset tokenization market, the company's stock price has still fallen by about 23% this year. Its current price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is approximately 15.3 times, higher than that of the internet insurance company ZhongAn Insurance (6060.HK), which stands at 14.7 times. However, compared to some financial companies that have seen significant stock price increases after making high-profile moves into virtual assets, YUNFENG FIN has yet to truly ignite market enthusiasm.
Ultimately, the insurance industry is not inherently an exciting sector for investors, especially under the current weak economic atmosphere in China. However, if YUNFENG FIN can continue to establish its positioning in the digital asset market through gold and other asset tokenization, it may add some new luster to this otherwise somewhat dull profit-making machine

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Yunfeng Financial has launched a digital token backed by physical gold, aimed at professional investors in Hong Kong. Each token represents 1 gram of 99.99% pure gold, stored in a high-security vault. This initiative utilizes the blockchain infrastructure of AlphaToken, marking Yunfeng Financial's strategic layout in the digital asset market, with the aim of establishing a product system centered around tokenization and virtual assets. Yunfeng Financial, supported by Jack Ma, is gradually transforming into a technology-oriented financial services company

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Jack Ma-supported Yunfeng Financial bets on the tokenization market for gold in Hong Kong