Deng Tong, Golden Finance
On September 1, 2025, Yunfeng Financial Group (HKEx) announced a strategic cooperation agreement with Ant Digits and a strategic investment in the Pharos public blockchain. On September 2, Yunfeng Financial announced that its board of directors had approved the purchase of ETH on the open market as a reserve asset. As of the date of this announcement, the group had purchased a total of 10,000 ETH on the open market, with a total investment cost (including fees and expenses) of US$44 million.
Yunfeng Financial's flurry of announcements over the past two days has attracted significant attention from industry insiders. What is Yunfeng Financial's background? What achievements has Ant Digits made in the past two years? Is the Pharos public blockchain worth watching? What are the far-reaching implications of this collaboration between these two giants?
I. Yunfeng Financial's Cryptocurrency Strategy
In 2010, Jack Ma and Juzhong Media founder Yu Feng founded Yunfeng Fund. The following year, it was renamed Yunfeng Financial. The name "Yunfeng" is derived from the names of the two founders. Jack Ma indirectly holds approximately 11.15% of Yunfeng Financial through Yunfeng Fund, a 29.85% stake in Yunfeng Financial Holdings Co., Ltd., and a 40% non-voting stake in Shanghai Yunfeng Capital. According to Yunfeng Financial's official website, Yunfeng Financial is listed on the main board of Hong Kong and operates in securities brokerage, asset management, insurance, and fintech sectors. Yunfeng Financial Group's subsidiaries hold financial services licenses 1, 4, and 9 granted by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). Furthermore, through its controlling stake in YF Life Insurance International Limited, the group holds a long-term insurance business license from the Hong Kong Insurance Authority and an approved trustee status for the Mandatory Provident Fund System (MPS). Yunfeng Financial's purchase of ETH as a reserve asset is a continuation of the financial strategy disclosed in July, when the board of directors expressed strong interest in Web3 technology, RWA tokenization, digital currencies, ESG net-zero assets, and artificial intelligence. The board reiterated that the ETH purchase will help the company achieve its long-term goal of integrating finance and technology. "ETH is accounted for as an investment in the group's financial statements." Yunfeng Financial also noted that holding ETH will help diversify its assets and reduce its reliance on traditional fiat currencies. Future plans include exploring the potential applications of Ethereum in insurance and new business scenarios within decentralized finance. Driven by expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut and institutional investor interest, the price of Ethereum has surged in recent weeks. Yunfeng Financial undoubtedly sees the future potential of Ethereum amid the current crypto treasury boom. Incorporating ETH into its financial framework can enhance financial autonomy and innovation, improving customer experience. It can also lock in its future value and capitalize on the growing prospects of the crypto market by increasing its holdings. Going forward, Yunfeng Financial will continue to monitor digital asset market trends and regulatory frameworks to assess whether to increase its ETH reserves. Furthermore, Yunfeng Financial's announcement the day before yesterday, including its partnership with Ant Digits and investment in public blockchains, is not surprising. As early as July 14th of this year, Yunfeng Financial announced its involvement in the Web3 space. The announcement stated: Building on its existing insurance and fintech businesses, the Group will strategically expand into cutting-edge areas such as Web 3.0, real-world assets (RWA), digital currencies, ESG zero-carbon assets, and artificial intelligence (AI). The Group will also explore innovations that connect these cutting-edge areas with various application scenarios within the Group's insurance companies. Building on the ecosystem platform that seamlessly integrates finance and technology, established through insurance, securities assets, and its strategic partners in cloud services and virtual banking, the Group will further increase its investment in digital currencies (such as stablecoins), real-world assets (RWA), and artificial intelligence (AI) in digital technology. The Group will also actively explore ESG zero-carbon assets in the Greater Bay Area. The Group will continue to actively participate in and lead technological change to enhance long-term shareholder value and returns. Yunfeng Financial's entry into the Web 3 space is a deliberate strategic decision. Amidst the rapid development of fintech, areas such as Web 3 and digital currencies demonstrate enormous potential. Yunfeng Financial aims to proactively prepare for this opportunity and seize the leading edge of future fintech development.
II. What achievements has Ant Digit made in the past two years?
Ant Digit is an independent technology subsidiary of Ant Group, operating independently from Ant Group in 2024. Its core business is to provide digital upgrade solutions for industries through technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cloud computing.
In the past two years, Ant Digit has achieved remarkable results in the blockchain field.
March 2024: Ant Digit began independent operations and completed a 2 billion yuan capital increase.
May 2024: The Hong Kong Monetary Authority launched the Ensemble Sandbox, with Ant Digit becoming one of the initial members. The project supports the HKMA's tokenization and central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects and explores tokenization use cases. August 2024: Under the guidance of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Ant Digits supported Longxin, a mainland China-listed new energy company, in successfully completing a 100 million yuan cross-border financing for a RWA project. The underlying assets were charging piles. This was the first new energy RWA project in China and was selected as a representative case study in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Ensemble Sandbox. March 2025: The "Technical Specifications for Trusted Blockchain Physical Assets" jointly initiated by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and Ant Digits were officially launched and drafting began, heralding a new phase in the standardization of physical asset RWAs. April 2025: Ant Digits open-sourced its DTVM virtual machine, seamlessly compatible with the Ethereum ecosystem. June 2025: Ant Digits initiated its application for a Hong Kong stablecoin license.
July 2025: Ant Digit's Layer 2 blockchain, Jovay, officially launches its testnet. As Ant Digit's blockchain platform specifically designed for institutional use cases, it serves a variety of use cases, including RWA.
August 2025: Ant Digit collaborates with Guotai Junan International to complete the first cross-chain issuance of structured product tokens, "Ant Chain-Ethereum."
September 2025: Ant Digit and Yunfeng Financial reach a strategic cooperation agreement. Leveraging the Pharos public blockchain platform, both parties will jointly explore compliant real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and cutting-edge areas such as Web3.
As mentioned above, Yunfeng Financial has extensive experience in securities, asset management, insurance, and financial technology, while Ant Digits has been deeply engaged in blockchain technology and digital assets for the past two years. This partnership between the two represents a powerful alliance and a classic example of the integration and complementary strengths of traditional and emerging finance.
III. Is the Pharos public chain worth watching?
The Pharos public chain was founded in July 2024 by former core members of Ant Group's blockchain business. Founder and CEO Alex Zhang previously served as CTO of Ant Blockchain Business Group and CEO of Ant Chain's Web3 brand, ZAN. CTO Wish Zhang previously served as CSO of Ant Chain.
Pharos is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 network designed to connect Web2 and Web3 assets and liquidity. Pharos focuses on institutional-grade RWA application scenarios and enterprise-level decentralized finance needs. By building leading modular infrastructure, it aims to address the pain points and difficulties traditional institutions face in entering Web3, creating an efficient, low-fee payment network, and promoting the scalable deployment of decentralized applications and the expansion of tokenized asset use cases. It bridges over $50 trillion in RWA, TradFi, and cross-chain capital into an internet-scale, modular on-chain economy. Its deeply parallel layer architecture supports real-time, real-world applications. In May of this year, Pharos announced the official launch of its public testnet. In June, the RWA protocol Spout announced its launch on the Pharos testnet. In August, Pharos partnered with the decentralized Web3 wallet Bitverse to build a perpetual contract decentralized exchange (PerpDEX) on the Pharos network. In September, Yunfeng Financial announced that it would collaborate with Ant Digits on the high-performance Pharos public blockchain platform to explore RWA tokenization and Web3. Pharos has accurately captured the current hottest sector in the industry. As the popularity of RWA continues to rise, both traditional and crypto financial institutions are urgently seeking on-chain asset platforms. The Pharos public blockchain, with its EVM compatibility, seamlessly integrates with mature development tools and applications within the Ethereum ecosystem, reducing developer migration costs. It also focuses on institutional needs. With the investment partnership between Ant Digits and Yunfeng Financial underway, its technological iteration and ecosystem expansion are expected to continue to advance, becoming the infrastructure connecting crypto and traditional finance, and expanding the influence of RWA within traditional finance. The significance of the collaboration between the two giants is evident in the collaboration between Yunfeng Financial and Ant Digits, which represents the fusion of traditional and digital finance. This collaboration not only benefits the development of their respective businesses but also has significant implications for the entire Web3 industry and the RWA sector. For Yunfeng Financial, this partnership will directly help it expand its business in Web3 and crypto. In its announcement, Yunfeng Financial stated, "This collaboration with Ant Digit will not only strengthen the Group's presence in digital finance, but also help Ant Digit deepen its application of blockchain technology. The synergy between the two parties will create new growth opportunities for both parties." By leveraging Ant Digit's blockchain technology and ecosystem resources, Yunfeng Financial is poised to accelerate the development of blockchain technology and crypto finance. Through the Pharos public chain, Yunfeng Financial can quickly integrate traditional finance with on-chain finance, providing users with a richer range of financial products and even attracting more institutional investors interested in RWAs. For Ant Digit, Yunfeng Financial's long-standing roots in traditional finance and its existing licenses, No. 1, 4, and 9, will provide Ant Digit with additional advantages in operational compliance. Furthermore, Yunfeng Financial's client channels and capital reserves will help Ant Digit alleviate concerns about the implementation of its investment in the Pharos public chain. Through the Pharos public chain, Ant Financial can further expand its influence in the field of blockchain technology, deepen its efforts in L1, and even integrate its own technical standards and ecological construction into it.
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