(Yicai) Sept. 12 -- Ant Group, the Jack Ma-backed Chinese fintech giant, will never issue virtual currency nor participate in any form of speculation, its chief executive officer said at a finance and technology conference being held in Shanghai.

Compliance is the lifeblood of innovation, Han Xinyi said in a speech yesterday at the 2025 Inclusion Conference on the Bund. Ant has always focused on serving the real economy through technological development, striving to create new value rather than competing for a part of what already exists, he added.

The Hangzhou-based firm has explored the tokenized economy over the years, and especially over the past year has advanced real-world assets sandbox practices, seeking to use technology to promote the efficient circulation of real assets and interconnected value, Han noted.

The tokenized economy must be deeply integrated into the real economy to unleash its true value, Han said, adding that if tokens are confined to circulating within the virtual world, their value proposition will be very limited.

Global Web3 native assets -- digital tokens such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens -- are worth more than USD3.8 trillion, but most of that remains at the stage of speculation and value storage, and lacks enough in-depth interaction with the real economy, Han said.

“Only when tokens shift from being speculative and value-storage tools in the virtual world to solving issues of trust, efficiency, and cost in the real economy can a sustainable, in-depth, and broad ecosystem be formed,” he pointed out.

“Asset tokenization” and “token payments” are the key engines driving in-depth integration between Web3 and the real economy, Han said. The two will ultimately converge and become a new kind of infrastructure supporting efficient value circulation in the real economy, he added.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione