On August 8, 2025, CMB International, a subsidiary of China Merchants Bank, announced a partnership with the Singapore-based digital exchange DigiFT and Solana blockchain service provider OnChain to tokenize a US dollar money market fund recognized in Hong Kong and Singapore. The tokenized fund will be issued on-chain as CMBMINT tokens. Notably, this marks the first instance of a cross-jurisdictional tokenized fund, with a leading Asian financial giant spearheading the issuance, setting a good compliance precedent for future multi-regional collaborations in Real World Assets (RWA).

By August 13, Solana officially announced that Solana is the underlying blockchain for the fund tokenization, making it Solana's first tokenized public offering fund product. The market responded positively, with Solana's price increasing by 15% in the past 24 hours. Within three hours of the announcement, Solana's price surged by an additional 5%, breaking the $200 mark.

This article will delve into how the institutional network behind this collaboration operates, CMB International's blockchain strategy and ambitions, and the investment contents of the on-chain fund CMBMINT itself.

How Was Solana's First On-Chain Fund Achieved?

Behind this fund tokenization project is a convergence of forces from both traditional finance and the blockchain space. CMB International Asset Management provides high-quality fund assets and regulatory compliance, DigiFT offers on-chain issuance and trading platform, and OnChain is responsible for underlying technical deployment and blockchain distribution support. The three parties collaborated to achieve the on-chain issuance of a traditional money market fund.

The tokenized asset is the CMB International US Dollar Money Market Fund (CMBMINT), established in February 2024. This fund invests 70% of its assets in short-term, high-quality US dollar-denominated instruments such as deposits, treasury bonds, and commercial paper with low volatility. The remaining 30% is allocated to non-US dollar-denominated short-term deposits and high-quality money market instruments, aiming for capital preservation and stable returns overall.

Since its inception, the fund has delivered outstanding performance, ranking first in Bloomberg's Asia-Pacific Money Market Fund category as of July 31, 2025. As a Hong Kong-Singapore mutual recognition fund, the fund is regulated in both jurisdictions and targets qualified professional investors. Therefore, initially, the project is limited to accredited investors in Singapore subscribing to the fund tokens through the DigiFT platform to ensure participants comply with local regulations (pending regulatory openness, participation may expand to institutional clients in Hong Kong and other jurisdictions).

The annualized yield of each share is generally maintained at above 4%, source: CMB Official Website

Under the collaboration of DigiFT and OnChain, the money market fund has completed the on-chain mapping and distribution of real-world assets. Specifically, DigiFT, as a licensed exchange, issued tokens pegged to the fund's net asset value, with each token representing a certain share of the fund, entitling holders to corresponding earnings. It is worth mentioning that this issuance marks the first deployment of a public offering fund token across multiple chains. In addition to Solana, the CMBMINT token will subsequently be deployed on Ethereum, Arbitrum, and the Plume Network.

Meanwhile, OnChain has embedded the entire tokenization process into its self-developed on-chain capital market infrastructure, providing comprehensive technical support. Firstly, in terms of compliance architecture and asset tokenization security, OnChain has introduced the "transfer hook" mechanism based on the Solana Token-2022 standard to ensure that fund tokens can only be redeemed through contracts, eliminating off-chain transfers and enhancing transaction compliance.

At the same time, it adopts a dual-standard architecture of SPL and Token-2022, ensuring compatibility with other on-chain assets and possessing flexible liquidity programming capabilities. Through a real-time net asset value anchoring mechanism, it avoids traditional fund settlement delays. In the subscription and redemption process, OnChain has established a full-chain security protection system, isolating core functions such as fund management, liquidity pools, and token minting into different PDA addresses to mitigate single-point risks. Critical operation executors are strictly limited through a whitelist mechanism, including fund company access and approval for large transactions. Real-time asset and permission scans, bi-directional net asset calculations, and net asset update time limits are introduced throughout the chain to ensure price stability and accurate accounting.

Lastly, in liquidity management, OnChain has designed a layered liquidity architecture, with a dedicated redeem cash pool to meet immediate redemption needs, avoiding liquidity runs. It provides both instant and delayed redemption modes, intelligently allocating based on pool liquidity conditions, and ensuring capital security even under extreme market conditions through a multi-account asset isolation mechanism, providing a near real-time fund arrival experience.

As the on-chain version of the Hong Kong-Singapore Mutual Recognition of Funds, CMBMINT has adopted an innovative and robust regulatory compliance framework. The fund itself remains regulated by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (through mutual recognition), while token issuance and trading take place on the platform of licensed institution DigiFT in Singapore. This "dual regulation" framework ensures that the underlying assets and trading environment are both in a legal and compliant state. Additionally, the smart contract of the fund token has undergone rigorous security audits, and a risk reserve fund and Proof of Reserve mechanism have been introduced to ensure the security, transparency, and full backing of on-chain assets.

CMBC International's Blockchain Strategy

As a state-owned traditional financial institution, CMBC International is among the early adopters of blockchain technology. It has built its own blockchain network through investments, funds, and business partnerships. These early explorations have not only given it an industry advantage but also laid the foundation for innovative initiatives such as obtaining a virtual asset license and launching on-chain funds. From fundamental technology and public chain ecosystem to decentralized finance and virtual asset services, CMBC International's blockchain journey is comprehensive and profound.

Fundamental Technology Investment (2017-2018)

CMBC International's earliest involvement in the blockchain field can be traced back to the end of 2017. At that time, it participated in the pre-A round financing of the Chinese blockchain technology startup "Cryptape." Cryptape, founded by former Ethereum core developer Xu Huajian, focused on blockchain fundamental technology development. It developed the enterprise-level chain framework CITA and open-sourced the code in July 2017. CITA pioneered a blockchain architecture that combined "microservices + logic nodes," significantly improving the performance and scalability of blockchain networks.

In July 2018, shortly after, CMBC International also invested in the prominent Chinese public chain project Nervos Network. Nervos is a layered architecture public chain ecosystem dedicated to addressing blockchain scalability challenges. It is worth mentioning that CMBC International not only provided funding but also facilitated cooperation between the invested project and the China Merchants Bank system: for example, Nervos and Cryptape teams assisted China Merchants Bank in developing an open permissioned blockchain using consortium chain technology to meet the needs of financial services.

Ecosystem Fund and Diversified Expansion (2019-2022)

After gaining initial expertise in public chain infrastructure, CMBC International accelerated its investment pace in blockchain application ecosystems. Starting in 2019, its investment team delved into blockchain application areas such as payment settlement, tokenization, identity authentication, and engaged in discussions with institutions like the Nervos Foundation on decentralized finance (DeFi) service solutions, nurturing broader collaboration opportunities.

In May 2021, CMBC International and the Nervos Foundation jointly launched the $50 million blockchain ecosystem fund "InNervation," planning to invest in promising blockchain startups worldwide over three years. The fund focuses on DApps, DeFi protocols, NFT platforms, and Layer1/Layer2 infrastructure based on Nervos and its ecosystem, providing funding ranging from $200,000 to $2 million to early-stage projects.

In addition to the public chain ecosystem, CMB International has also been paying attention to the consortium chain and enterprise service fields. In July 2022, the blockchain infrastructure provider Rivtower completed a Pre-B round of financing worth tens of millions of RMB, with CMB International, as an existing shareholder, continuing to increase its investment. Rivtower was founded by a domestic open-source consortium chain technology team and developed the world's first cloud-native blockchain framework, CITA-Cloud, to provide underlying technical support for the industrial Internet and government-enterprise markets. CMB International's continuous follow-on investments in its A+ round and Pre-B round demonstrate its long-term optimism for the blockchain underlying infrastructure sector and further consolidate its influence in the domestic consortium chain/Web3 infrastructure community.

Exploration of Virtual Asset Services (2022-2025)

As blockchain gradually integrates with financial applications, CMB International has started to explore new areas of digital asset and fintech integration in recent years. Between 2022 and 2023, CMB International served multiple times as the exclusive placement agent for the Hong Kong-listed company Arta TechFin (279.HK), assisting in its stock issuance and convertible bond issuance financing. Arta TechFin, founded by Zheng Zhigang, Executive Vice Chairman of Hong Kong's New World Group, is positioned to connect Web2 and Web3 with new technologies such as blockchain, providing high-end financial services that integrate virtual assets and traditional assets. Its products include the Arta Wallet, a wallet and custody platform employing world-class security technology, and the Arta STO, a blockchain-based regulated digital securities issuance platform.

This forward-looking investment has also earned regulatory approval for CMB International. On July 14, 2025, CMB International Securities Limited officially obtained approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, becoming the first mainland Chinese bank-affiliated securities firm in Hong Kong to obtain a virtual asset trading service license. This means that CMB International can compliantly provide trading services, including cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, to eligible investors in Hong Kong, expanding its business scope from traditional stocks to the digital asset field.

U.S. Public Chain Collaborates with Chinese Institutions, Who is Driving This "Century Collaboration"?

Behind the successful realization of this cross-border on-chain fund, two key institutions, DigiFT and OnChain, are worth noting, one "connecting" with CMB International through regulatory compliance and the other focusing on public chain technology issuance support to "connect" with public chains like Solana. Who are they exactly?

DigiFT: On-Chain Compliance Exchange Pioneer

DigiFT is a Singaporean fintech company established in 2021, dedicated to building an on-chain digital asset exchange that combines compliance with decentralization in parallel. Its founder, Henry Zhang, has a senior banking background, which has led DigiFT to place a strong emphasis on regulatory compliance from the outset.

Henry Zhang has nearly 13 years of executive experience in the foreign-funded bank Greater China region, Source: Linkedin

DigiFT is the world's first blockchain-based trading platform to obtain official Market Operator Recognition (RMO) from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and hold a Capital Markets Services (CMS) license. With these dual licenses, DigiFT can legally provide on-chain securities token issuance and trading services to qualified investors. In terms of technological innovation, DigiFT was the first to introduce a globally compliant on-chain Automated Market Maker (AMM) mechanism, combining the efficiency of decentralized trading with traditional regulatory requirements. Additionally, the platform has issued products such as the world's first batch of tokenized US Treasury Depositary Receipts, proving the feasibility of bringing real-world financial assets into the DeFi space.

In 2025, DigiFT further obtained the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Digital Asset Custody License, expanding its business scope to include compliant custody services, further enhancing its end-to-end RWA solution capabilities. In the CMBMINT project, DigiFT plays the roles of issuer and exchange: it issues tokens pegged to fund net asset value and provides subscription, trading, and redemption channels to qualified investors through its platform.

In fact, prior to this collaboration, DigiFT had already completed multiple RWA tokenization partnerships. In February 2025, DigiFT partnered with Invesco to launch a $630 million tokenized private credit fund (iSNR), deployed on the Arbitrum chain, supporting USDC/USDT subscriptions, and expanding to the Plume network. In March 2025, it launched two tokenized index funds tracking AI stocks (such as Apple, Tesla) and major cryptocurrencies. As UBS's on-chain tokenization distribution partner, DigiFT supports products like uMINT (US Dollar Money Market Fund) and in August of this year collaborated with KuCoin to operate uMINT as a collateral asset on the platform. In addition, they have engaged to varying degrees in tokenizing real-world assets with institutions and projects such as HashKey Capital, FundBridge, Wellington Management, Libeara, Chainlink, IOST, WSPN, and GSR.

It is precisely because DigiFT possesses mature compliance operational experience and innovative on-chain trading technology that CMB International can confidently entrust fund token issuance and circulation to its management. Traditional institutions are responsible for asset and compliance oversight, while innovative platforms are responsible for technical implementation and market liquidity, with each leveraging its strengths.

OnChain: RWA Technology Catalyst

OnChain is a fintech company focused on the global asset securitization on-chain, with core team members having dual backgrounds in traditional finance and blockchain. The team includes founders of NASDAQ-listed companies, executives from trillion-dollar asset management firms, and former executives from global top 5 exchanges. The core team graduated from renowned institutions such as Peking University and Columbia University, with previous experience at institutions like Goldman Sachs, ByteDance, and Tencent, bringing deep expertise in blockchain, smart contracts, and digital asset management.

Relying on the support of top institutions such as CMB International (CMBI), UBS, and Invesco, OnChain provides on-chain investment solutions covering money market funds, bond funds, and off-balance-sheet fixed-income products. They also plan to support global ETFs and mainstream stock market investments in the future, driving deep integration between traditional finance and the on-chain ecosystem.

The Era of Institutional RWA

The increasing collaboration between institutions and on-chain projects reflects a trend where the convergence of regulation, assets, and technology is key to the successful implementation of RWA projects. From a broader perspective, Asian financial institutions (such as new policies in Hong Kong and sandboxes in Singapore) are laying the foundation for cross-border blockchain innovation. In the future, with more traditional giants acting as a bridge between blockchain innovation companies, we have reason to expect more cross-market, cross-technology collaboration. This will drive the maturity of on-chain real-world asset securitization, bringing new possibilities for the globalization of financial markets.

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