CMB International launches the first on-chain mutual fund on Solana
B.news
On August 13th, Solana officially announced that, with support from Digift and OnChain, CMB International, a leading Asian asset management firm, successfully launched its flagship fund on the Solana blockchain. The token is CMBMINT.
This marks the world's first public fund on the Solana blockchain and holds significant significance for Asia's financial markets. This move marks a further embrace of decentralized finance (DeFi) by traditional financial institutions, leveraging Solana's high-performance network to provide investors with innovative fund issuance and participation channels. 1. What is an "on-chain public fund"?
Traditional model innovation: Traditional public funds rely heavily on centralized systems for establishment, share registration, subscription and redemption, and net asset value calculation.
CMB International's innovation lies in deploying the fund's core operational processes (particularly share issuance, ownership confirmation, and circulation) on smart contracts on the Solana blockchain.
Improved transparency and efficiency: Due to the public and immutable nature of blockchain, key information such as the total number of fund shares issued, holder addresses (anonymous or after KYC), and transaction records can theoretically be accessed on-chain in real time, significantly improving transparency.
Furthermore, Solana's high throughput (theoretically up to 65,000 TPS) and low transaction costs (gas fees) are expected to significantly shorten the cumbersome subscription, redemption, and settlement cycles (T1 or T2) of traditional funds, even achieving near-real-time processing.
Compliance is a prerequisite: It is important to emphasize that as a "public offering" product launched by a licensed financial institution, the fund must strictly adhere to relevant financial regulatory laws and regulations (such as those of the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the regulatory authorities in the fund's registered location).
On-chain technology is a means to achieve this, not a means to circumvent regulation. This means that core compliance processes such as investor onboarding (KYC/AML), fund custody, investment scope restrictions, and information disclosure will continue to be completed offline or through a hybrid off-chain and on-chain "compliance channel."
2. Why choose Solana?
Performance advantages: Solana is known for its high speed and low cost among mainstream public chains due to its unique "Proof of History (PoH)" consensus mechanism and parallel processing capabilities. This is crucial for public fund scenarios that need to handle high-frequency subscriptions and redemptions and real-time net asset value calculations.
Ecosystem maturity: Solana has a prosperous DeFi, NFT and payment application ecosystem, with a large and active user base. This provides potential soil for possible future on-chain application scenarios of funds (such as participating in lending as collateral, conducting secondary trading of shares on DEX, etc.). At the same time, its developer community is active and the tool chain is relatively complete, which facilitates customized development by institutions.
Institutional acceptance: Solana continues to make efforts to attract traditional financial institutions and large enterprises. Its technical architecture and compliance-friendliness (such as support for compliance tools) have gradually gained recognition, becoming one of the preferred platforms for TradFi to explore on-chain business.
3. Milestone Significance: More Than Just a "First Launch"
TradFi Embraces DeFi: This substantial leap forward for CMB International's (CMBI) DeFi initiative goes beyond the previous focus of large institutions solely investing in crypto assets or issuing tokenized funds.
It directly migrates the production process of core traditional financial products (mutual funds) onto the public blockchain.
This marks the transition of the integration of TradFi and DeFi from conceptual exploration and marginal experimentation to the deep end of mainstream financial product innovation.
Setting a Benchmark for the Industry: As a leading financial institution in China, CMB International's demonstration effect is significant. This move is likely to accelerate the exploration and adoption of on-chain fund issuance models by other traditional asset management institutions, banks, and securities firms, driving the digital transformation of the entire industry.
Exploring New Paradigms: On-chain funds are more than just a change in channels; they have the potential to spawn new fund operating models, investor engagement methods, and value creation pathways. Examples include more flexible share fragmentation, seamless integration with DeFi protocols, and incentive mechanisms based on on-chain behavior.
Upgraded investor experience: Potential advantages include lower barriers to entry (especially for small cross-border investments), more transparent operations, faster access to liquidity, and the potential for richer on-chain interactive features in the future.
CMB International's launch of the first on-chain public fund on Solana is more than a simple technology transplant;
it is a key signal flare for the traditional financial system to seek a paradigm shift in the era of digital assets.
It is both a validation of blockchain technology's ability to empower core financial businesses and a forward-looking layout for the future form of financial infrastructure.
Although the road ahead is full of regulatory, technological, and market challenges, this groundbreaking move undoubtedly paints a blueprint for a more efficient, transparent, and innovative future for the entire financial industry, and its subsequent development deserves the market's close attention.
