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China has issued a new multi-agency notice aimed at tightening controls around virtual-currency activity while setting out a narrowly framed compliance path for certain offshore tokenization structures. On Feb. 6, 2026, the People’s Bank of China and seven other agencies released the joint notice (marketed as “Document No. 42”), which states that virtual-currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities and explicitly defines “real-world asset tokenization” as the conversion of ownership or income rights into tokenized claims using cryptography or distributed-ledger-type technology. The text and signatories are published by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
The notice also addresses offshore activity tied to onshore rights. It states that domestic entities engaging directly or indirectly in offshore RWA tokenization structures based on domestic rights—described in the document as external-debt-form issuance and securitization-like or equity-nature tokenization—will be subject to strict supervision and required approvals or filings, with relevant oversight roles referenced for agencies including the NDRC, CSRC and SAFE in line with a “same business, same risk, same rules” approach. Separately, the notice prohibits offshore issuance of RMB-pegged stablecoins without regulatory approval and reiterates restrictions on overseas issuance of “virtual currencies” by domestic entities and their controlled offshore entities.
Alongside the notice, the CSRC published a dedicated supervisory guideline for offshore issuance of tokenized asset-backed securities backed by onshore assets. The guideline sets a CSRC filing requirement and ties eligibility and ongoing compliance to a range of cross-border, foreign-exchange, cybersecurity and data-security requirements, while listing disqualifying conditions such as major investigations, serious criminal offenses, or unresolved ownership/title disputes, among others.
The update is non-trivial for market participants because it replaces the prior 2021 notice (银发〔2021〕237号), takes effect from issuance, and expands enforcement and conduct expectations beyond trading bans into corporate naming, marketing, and civil-law framing. The notice instructs market regulators to scrutinize registration and advertising that uses terms such as “RWA/现实世界资产代币化,” and states that civil acts involving prohibited virtual-currency and RWA-token investments that violate public order and good morals are invalid, with losses borne by investors.
In practice, the measures most directly affect China-linked issuers and intermediaries structuring offshore tokenized products tied to onshore rights, as well as service providers offering tokenization-related issuance, trading, marketing, or technical support into the mainland. Domestic RWA tokenization and related intermediary or information-technology services are treated as prohibited illegal financial activity unless approved under applicable rules and tied to “specific financial infrastructure,” while offshore tokenized ABS backed by domestic assets is routed into an explicit CSRC filing-and-constraint framework.
