Bitfire is where Li Lin bets on the next cryptocurrency in Hong Kong. Mr Lee will take over the trading team and structure from his family’s firm, Avenir Group, and transfer it to Bitfire Group, a Hong Kong-listed company of which he is the largest shareholder.
Wealth management company Bitfire announced on Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Avenir’s investment team and trading system for $1.6 million.
Li first made a name for himself through Huobi, an exchange now called HTX. Mainland China has banned crypto trading since 2021, but Hong Kong is trying to establish itself as a crypto asset center. Li sold control of Huobi to Justin Sun in 2022 for about $1 billion. He then turned his attention to Mr. Avenir.
Bitfire brings Lee’s trading team to Hong Kong to raise external Bitcoin money
With the deal with Avenir in place, Bitfire hopes to raise external capital for a regulated Bitcoin-denominated asset management product called Alpha. $BTC.
Bitfire CEO Livio Wen said the company hopes to attract more than 10,000 Bitcoin investments within a year. That translates to approximately $760 million in amounts listed in sources.
Livio said that while more local businesses are holding Bitcoin, they still don’t have an easy way to profit from it, so “the market demand for such a product is huge.”
said he was an alpha $BTC The strategy plans to use either Bitcoin or the IBIT ETF as the underlying asset and generate profits through derivatives trading, including options. Target customers are both crypto-native investors and Hong Kong-based businesses.
This target list is significant because Bitfire estimates that at least 40 Hong Kong-listed companies already hold Bitcoin.
So the company may be targeting a market where companies already have cryptocurrencies on their books and need a regulated way to make more money from their holdings.
US lawmakers stall over stablecoins and markets bill while Hong Kong builds crypto rules
Meanwhile, at one of Hong Kong’s biggest Web3 events, officials and lawmakers spoke openly about pushing Hong Kong’s crypto push beyond the local market.
“We can be a little more ambitious because we have strong domestic power, and we should also expand our influence by (increasing) our exposure internationally,” said Eric Yip Chee-han, brokerage executive director at the Securities and Futures Commission.
Eric added that Hong Kong has “achieved so much” that it is “getting attention” at international conferences.
Earlier this month, the city issued its first two licenses to stablecoin issuers. It is also moving forward with regulating virtual currency dealers and custodians.
Technology and Innovation District Legislative Councilor Duncan Chiu Tat-kun said on Monday that there had been “a lot of progress” in the United States. He said Hong Kong is paying close attention to US legislation such as the Genius Act, which deals with stablecoins, and the Clarity Act, which aims to set rules for the structure of the cryptocurrency market.
But Duncan also said the transparency law is stalled because the Senate is still dealing with a dispute between banks and crypto companies over stablecoin yields. He said Hong Kong needs to keep a close eye on what happens next in Washington.
He said if the bill fails to pass this month, it could be delayed until the end of 2027. It added that such delays would delay much of the U.S. legislative work, especially with the uncertainty surrounding November’s midterm elections.
“I think they’ve written a very good bill, but the political climate means that the market development won’t be clear for some time,” Duncan said.
He further noted that Hong Kong’s digital asset regulations are “making steady progress” compared to the changes on the ground in the United States before President Donald Trump took office in January 2025 and after the Biden administration took a tough stance on crypto companies.
