Malu Grape Project Raises 10.2 Million Yuan via NFTs and Equity Financing

The Malu Grape project in Shanghai, launched on November 25, 2024, marked a significant milestone as China’s first agricultural Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization initiative. The project aimed to transform vineyard data into digital assets using blockchain technology, simultaneously raising 10 million yuan through equity financing and 200,000 yuan via NFT sales on the Shanghai Data Exchange. The project was hailed as a benchmark for "technology empowering real-world agriculture," sparking intense debate around localized RWA pathways.

However, a closer examination reveals that the project falls short of true RWA innovation. The so-called "tokenization" is essentially a repackaging of traditional financing under compliance-friendly wrappers. NFTs act as consumer presale cards, while SPV-based equity structures retain centralized governance and eliminate real yield tokens. This "de-financialized" survival model, born under regulatory pressure, fails to empower producers or provide real liquidity, despite its technological presentation.

Using the Malu Grape case as a sample, the project highlights three key contradictions behind the RWA illusion. First, blockchain is reduced to a credit-enhancement tool, without altering core production relations. Second, the SPV structure and NFT definition are crafted to dodge policy red lines on securities issuance. Third, farmer data rights and financial benefits are stripped away, contradicting RWA’s inclusive ideals.

Through an analysis of asset selection, on-chain mapping, and financing architecture, it is argued that the core challenge in digitizing agricultural assets in China lies not in copying technology, but in balancing compliance with real value creation under regulatory constraints. The project's asset selection process ensured that Malu Grape, a geographically certified agricultural product with a strong consumer demand and robust traceability system, was suitable for RWA tokenization. The production model involves a local industrial consortium, including research institutes, enterprises, cooperatives, and farmers, each playing defined roles from varietal R&D to branding, standardized production, and farming.

The technology packaging and on-chain mapping process involved the integration of sensor data from 600 mu of vineyards into a "Data Asset Shell (DAS)," developed by the Shanghai Data Exchange for compliance processing and data standardization. This built a "truthful" on-chain dataset mutually recognized by stakeholders. SwiftLink anchored the data on-chain, ensuring traceability and immutability, while AMC (Any-Chain Multi-Track) technology mirrored it to the "Pujiang Digital Chain" for multi-chain validation. The asset valuation was based on the cost-plus method, market premium method, and discounted cash flow, estimating future gains from precision agriculture and anti-counterfeiting value.

The SPV structure and financing design involved the creation of a new entity, Zuo’an Xinhui (Shanghai) Data Technology Co., Ltd., which held all Malu grape data assets and brand rights. However, due to regulatory prohibitions on token securities, the project abandoned its original token economy in favor of a "de-financialized" route. Utility tokens became 2,024 NFTs, marketed as "digital collectibles" to avoid security classification. 2,013 NFTs were sold at 99 yuan each, raising 200,000 yuan. Governance and revenue tokens were not issued publicly; instead, yield rights were embedded into the SPV’s equity and offered solely to institutional investors, raising 10 million yuan under the corporate shareholding framework.

Liquidity management involved the issuance of NFTs on November 25, 2024, which sold out quickly and are now only traded in secondary markets. Each NFT included basic benefits such as a 2kg grape voucher and optional park tickets, as well as add-ons like access to a virtual vineyard game and loyalty point redemptions. Trading restrictions included a maximum 5% ownership per user, a 5-day cooldown before each trade, and the burning of NFTs upon voucher redemption, with no disaster compensation plan disclosed.