Bitfire is the place Li Lin bets on the following cryptocurrency in Hong Kong. Mr Lee will take over the buying and selling staff and construction from his household’s agency, Avenir Group, and switch it to Bitfire Group, a Hong Kong-listed firm of which he’s the most important shareholder.
Wealth administration firm Bitfire introduced on Wednesday that it has agreed to accumulate Avenir’s funding staff and buying and selling system for $1.6 million.
Li first made a reputation for himself by way of Huobi, an change now referred to as HTX. Mainland China has banned crypto buying and selling since 2021, however Hong Kong is making an attempt to determine itself as a crypto asset middle. Li bought management of Huobi to Justin Solar in 2022 for about $1 billion. He then turned his consideration to Mr. Avenir.
Bitfire brings Lee’s buying and selling staff to Hong Kong to lift exterior Bitcoin cash
With the cope with Avenir in place, Bitfire hopes to lift exterior capital for a regulated Bitcoin-denominated asset administration product referred to as Alpha. $BTC.
Bitfire CEO Livio Wen stated the corporate hopes to draw greater than 10,000 Bitcoin investments inside a yr. That interprets to roughly $760 million in quantities listed in sources.
Livio stated that whereas extra native companies are holding Bitcoin, they nonetheless haven’t got a simple solution to revenue from it, so “the market demand for such a product is large.”
he stated he is an alpha $BTC The technique plans to make use of both Bitcoin or the IBIT ETF because the underlying asset and generate earnings by way of derivatives buying and selling, together with choices. Goal prospects are each crypto-native traders and Hong Kong-based companies.
This goal record is important as a result of Bitfire estimates that no less than 40 Hong Kong-listed firms already maintain Bitcoin.
So the corporate could also be concentrating on a market the place firms have already got cryptocurrencies on their books and wish a regulated manner to earn more money from their holdings.
US lawmakers stall over stablecoins and markets invoice whereas Hong Kong builds crypto guidelines
In the meantime, at certainly one of Hong Kong’s largest Web3 occasions, officers and lawmakers spoke overtly about pushing Hong Kong’s crypto push past the native market.
“We could be a little extra bold as a result of now we have sturdy home energy, and we must also broaden our affect by (growing) our publicity internationally,” stated Eric Yip Chee-han, brokerage govt director on the Securities and Futures Fee.
Eric added that Hong Kong has “achieved a lot” that it’s “getting consideration” at worldwide conferences.
Earlier this month, town issued its first two licenses to stablecoin issuers. Additionally it is shifting ahead with regulating digital foreign money sellers and custodians.
Expertise and Innovation District Legislative Councilor Duncan Chiu Tat-kun stated on Monday that there had been “quite a lot of progress” in the USA. He stated Hong Kong is paying shut consideration to US laws such because the Genius Act, which offers with stablecoins, and the Readability Act, which goals to set guidelines for the construction of the cryptocurrency market.
However Duncan additionally stated the transparency regulation is stalled as a result of the Senate continues to be coping with a dispute between banks and crypto firms over stablecoin yields. He stated Hong Kong must preserve a detailed eye on what occurs subsequent in Washington.
He stated if the invoice fails to cross this month, it may very well be delayed till the top of 2027. It added that such delays would delay a lot of the U.S. legislative work, particularly with the uncertainty surrounding November’s midterm elections.
“I believe they’ve written an excellent invoice, however the political local weather signifies that the market improvement will not be clear for a while,” Duncan stated.
He additional famous that Hong Kong’s digital asset laws are “making regular progress” in comparison with the adjustments on the bottom in the USA earlier than President Donald Trump took workplace in January 2025 and after the Biden administration took a troublesome stance on crypto firms.
