Deep dive into Jia Yueting's foray into RWA, who is the new director behind the old actor?

Author: Ethan; Editor: Hao Fangzhou

Produced by | Odaily Planet Daily (ID: o-daily)

On July 17, when Jia Yueting stood on the rooftop parking lot of a building in downtown Los Angeles, speaking confidently to the camera about FF's latest electric vehicle, the FX Super One, under the afternoon sun and warm breeze, he may have already been planning his next act in his mind. Little did anyone expect that while the 'car' was still floating in the air, Boss Jia's script had quietly turned the page to - the Web3 ecosystem.

On July 22, FF Lightning announced a strategic partnership with the digital asset infrastructure platform HabitTrade. As expected, Boss Jia once again activated the "concept output" mode, throwing out a dazzling array of terms: "EAI travel + Web3 + blockchain + cryptocurrency + stablecoin," boldly claiming to create a "value fusion monster" that connects "Web2 & Web3," "on-chain & off-chain," and "reality & virtual." Truly a legendary statement in the PPT startup community.

RWA cannot be implemented just by wanting to: What exactly can FF "go on-chain"?

RWA, short for Real World Asset, sounds like an impressive term, but it actually refers to a very basic concept: moving valuable off-chain assets onto the chain for trading and circulation. In other words, project parties must provide something that is "truly valuable in the real world"—it can be real estate, debt rights, accounts receivable, gold, or artworks, but it must meet two prerequisites: it must have legal ownership and there must be a clear revenue path.

So the question arises: what assets does FF plan to use to tell the story of RWA?

Is that the Hanford factory? It hasn't achieved full production for many years, and there are even doubts from the outside that it hasn't connected to the water and electricity grid; Is it the FF 91? Only a few deliveries, with staggering losses per vehicle; or is it those "future concept cars" that are announced year after year, delayed year after year, and now they don't even dare to write the delivery time on their official Twitter?

None of them. At this moment, the only thing that can still be "on-chain" for FF is the more than 10,000 pre-orders. Don't be fooled by the small number; in a company like FF, it is already one of the few "storytelling assets". Although these orders have not yet been delivered and do not possess the legal attributes of accounts receivable, they represent a potential "future cash flow" that falls under the category of "contingent assets" in traditional financial contexts—unable to be recorded, but can be packaged.

In other words, if Jia Yueting really wants to pursue RWA, then his most realistic plan would be to package these more than 10,000 pre-orders into a "future revenue rights asset pool," and then have RWA Group design structured token products, which would be sold externally through the HabitTrade platform.

Superficially, this is called "future revenue tokenization"; but fundamentally, it is financing "the money to build cars" with the "promise of selling cars." Logically, it is a closed loop, and emotionally it makes sense: Trust me, and give me money; when I go into mass production, I will return your profits.

This sounds very Jia Yueting, and very Web3.

(The analysis and interpretation of this model in the following text is based on the assumption that "FF will put the pre-orders on the chain.")

Who is the real director? What are HabitTrade and RWA Group really after?

If the pre-order is the script of this RWA drama, then HabitTrade and RWA Group are the real "directors" and "stage designers" behind the scenes. To understand how this play is designed, we must first look at what they actually do and what types of roles each excels in.

HabitTrade: The "Shuttle Bus" of the Stablecoin Circle

From publicly available information, HabitTrade is a "global multi-market brokerage" registered in the Cayman Islands, but a look at its official website or app pages reveals that it is not a traditional stock trading platform in the conventional sense. Its biggest feature is the use of stablecoins like USDT as the entry point for deposits, bridging the on-chain and off-chain channels between US stocks, Hong Kong stocks, ETFs, and crypto assets.

What does this mean? In simple terms: you can use USDT to buy Hong Kong stocks, and you can also convert the profits from US stocks back into on-chain assets. For users who pursue flexibility and regulatory compliance, this "off-chain assets × stablecoin liquidity" bridge is exactly what they want.

The key is: HabitTrade is not just an entry point; it is also an "execution platform." It once helped U-Power with a fusion financing attempt of "equity + tokens," and the approach is almost identical to the pre-order tokenization idea of FF this time — the underlying assets remain unchanged, financial packaging is rebranded, attracting a batch of crypto speculators willing to bet with USDT.

Therefore, Jia Yueting's collaboration with HabitTrade this time is not a coincidence; it is a replication of the script laid out by predecessors.

RWA Group: The Transformation Show from NFT to Structured Finance

Let's take a look at another partner—RWA Group. This name may not be very prominent, but you might have heard of its "predecessor": NFT China. That's right, the Web3 project that made headlines during the NFT bull market in 2021 has now transformed into a "RWA tokenization expert."

This transformation sounds a bit rushed, but it is actually very precise: they are not looking to create assets, but rather to be "packagers of assets." RWA Group specializes in structural design, cross-border legalities, and technical compliance. To put it simply, they help you "write the story" on one hand, and "clean it up" on the other. They do not need FF to actually produce many cars; they just need FF to provide a model of "predictable future cash flow". The rest, including structural layering, revenue models, Token issuance, and on-chain linkage, can all be packaged and sorted out.

At this point, the layout of the play becomes clear: FF provides the story materials (pre-orders); RWA Group is responsible for designing the narrative structure and distribution model; HabitTrade provides the trading channel and USDT buyers. All of this indicates that this is not just a "random on-chain dance" thought up by FF alone, but rather a financial narrative project that has been "actuarially designed."

Its underlying color is not dreams, nor the idealism of manufacturing, but the precise logic of structural arbitrage.

Self-rescue? Carnival? Stepping on mines? Is FF's RWA experiment really reliable?

When we break down this RWA model, on the surface it indeed forms a logical closed loop: Jia Yueting exchanged the "promise of selling cars in the future" for today's USDT financing, with a commitment to repay investors in the future in the form of "rights tokens." However, for the crypto community, this kind of approach is not unfamiliar, and it can even be said to be well-known. In other words, it can be summarized as: "Futurism + Tokenization + Liquidity = Short-term narrative premium."

So is this gameplay reliable? Let's break it down from three perspectives:

First, the short-term structure is viable, and the narrative drives speculation.

As long as the pre-order is genuinely existing and has payment records, RWA Group can package it into a "future cash flow asset pool" and then create token mappings according to the proportion of "expected income rights," issuing them on-chain to investors. HabitTrade has a complete stablecoin exchange system, allowing for seamless listing and trading against USDT pairs, and can even add LP incentives to quickly attract the first batch of market participants.

Public companies + advance orders + airdrop expectations, these three strategies are enough to activate a wave of short-term market sentiment.

So, in a speculative sense, this matter has the potential to run through - not in the product, but in "FOMO + emotions + narrative."

Secondly, the underlying assets are questionable; this is not RWA, it is "emotional crowdfunding".

If you dig a little deeper, you will find that the so-called underlying assets provided by FF—10,000 pre-orders—are actually assets that have no legal protection, cannot be enforced by law, and cannot confirm the ability to realize profits. In simple terms, it is not an account receivable that can be valued and redeemed, but a "trust-based commitment letter." What you are buying is not the cash flow of the orders, but the credit of Jia Yueting, FF's car manufacturing capability, and the market's collective imagination of "delivery next week."

This is not the on-chain representation of "real-world assets", but rather the tokenization of "vision and belief". If we allow this operation to expand indefinitely, RWA will no longer be a bridge to traditional assets, but a packaging machine for narratives and speculation. Once participants are not investing in assets, but in "investing in others' efforts", then this game will reach a critical point of becoming a Ponzi scheme.

Finally, dancing with RWA under the shadow of SEC regulation carries significant risks.

Don't forget, FF is a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ. This means that no matter what new stories are told on the blockchain, it cannot escape the scrutiny of the traditional financial regulatory system.

Currently, FF is under SEC scrutiny due to financial disclosure issues from earlier years. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a warning letter to Jia Yueting and CEO Wang Jiawei, and may initiate enforcement proceedings. While this investigation is still ongoing, FF has boldly announced a Web3 collaboration with HabitTrade, involving tokenized financing, which undoubtedly increases the compliance sensitivity of the entire project. (For details, see: "Jia Yueting, who just raised 700 million, is about to be 'caught' again?" ())

Although FF has not explicitly launched any tokens or token sales plans, there is a possibility that once it involves monetizing "pre-orders" and fundraising from U.S. citizens in the future, it may touch the SEC's regulatory red line on "unregistered securities offerings."

This is not marginal innovation, but rather an attempt to walk a tightrope at the intersection of traditional finance and crypto finance, using the identity of a publicly listed company.

What is the conclusion?

In the short term, it may succeed, relying on speculation. In the medium term, there may be issues, stemming from regulation. For the long term, whether it can succeed comes back to a heart-wrenching question: Can FF really deliver the cars?

If not, then this financial innovation on the blockchain will ultimately be nothing more than an old dream wrapped in a Token.

Conclusion: Is this the future of RWA, or is it Jia Yueting's old path?

The end of financial innovation is not liquidity, but trust. And Jia Yueting's FF is precisely the most contradictory existence on this road: he is extremely good at storytelling, yet always stumbles on delivery; he is always positioned at the forefront of capital, yet struggles to uphold the delivery promises behind the capital wind.

This time, he attempted to revive a "faith relay" from Nasdaq to Web3 under the name of RWA: to turn the future of mass production of cars into tokens; to transform the prepaid money from users into circulating assets in the hands of investors; to attach a blockchain financial shell to a high-risk, uncertain, narrative-dependent business model—continuing to tell the story.

But RWA is not a sanctuary in the crypto world; it is a bridge of "off-chain assets + on-chain trust." If this side of the bridge is a foggy PPT and the other side is tokens that need to be redeemed, then this bridge won't go far and can't bear the weight.

In the end, this is not a victory for RWA, nor is it a victory for Web3, but rather another attempt by Jia Yueting in the art of "how to tell a monetizable future." He may succeed, allowing FFAI's stock price to live another round, buying himself a few more months of capital survival time; he may also fail, prompting the SEC to strike another heavy blow, turning the interface between Web3 and TradFi into a new regulatory testing ground. But regardless of the outcome, he has won the part he is best at: attention, traffic, and a group of followers willing to bet on him once again.

For Jia Yueting, this is still the script he is most familiar with, just with a different stage.