Hong Kong targets 10,000 BTC in purchases for Asia’s first regulated Bitcoin capital pool

A Hong Kong-listed company wants to attract more than 10,000 BTC into a regulated asset management strategy, a target worth roughly $760 million at current prices. While the number itself is jaw-dropping, it's the strategy's structure that reveals the true scope of this plan. Hong Kong is trying to become a place where large pools of Bitcoin capital can sit under local rules, inside a familiar financial system, without forcing Asian investors to rely on US ETFs or offshore exchanges for every serious allocation. Li Lin, the founder of HTX (formerly Huobi), plans to move a trading system and investment team from his family office, Avenir Group, into Hong Kong-listed Bitfire Group. Bitfire is preparing a regulated Bitcoin-denominated strategy called Alpha BTC, with CEO Livio Weng saying the firm aims to attract more than 10,000 BTC from investors. The strategy is expected to use derivatives tied to Bitcoin or BlackRock’s IBIT. Avenir has become one of Asia’s largest holders of US Bitcoin ETF exposure through a $908 million IBIT position. As you can clearly tell from the size of this position, Asian capital already owns quite a bit of Bitcoin through Wall Street. Some of it sits in US ETFs, some sits with offshore platforms, and some is held by listed companies, family offices, and crypto-native investors who know the asset well but still need a structure their banks, auditors, boards, and regulators can understand. Bitfire’s pitch is aimed at that gap: bring the capital closer to home, place it inside Hong Kong’s regulated market, and turn Bitcoin exposure from a side-door trade into something closer to local financial infrastructure. Related Reading Is China using US Bitcoin ETFs as a backdoor? Mystery Hong Kong firm invested $436M in BlackRock’s IBIT As Chinese crypto regulations tighten, Hong Kong firms increasingly invest in US ETFs for Bitcoin exposure. Feb 18, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo Hong Kong wants the wrapper, not just the asset The easiest way to understand the importance of this strategy is to separate Bitcoin from the wrapper around it. Bitcoin itself trades globally. Anyone can look at the same price, send the same asset, and settle on the same network. But large investors rarely interact with it that directly. A family office, listed company, fund manager, or wealthy individual usually needs custody, execution, risk controls, audited statements, legal responsibility, and an involved regulator with clear guidelines. That's why spot Bitcoin ETFs became such a powerful product in the US. They let investors buy Bitcoin exposure through a brokerage account, using familiar securities-market rails, with large asset managers and regulated custodians in the middle. CryptoSlate has covered how Hong Kong-linked capital has already used that route, including the earlier disclosure of a $436 million IBIT position by Laurore Ltd. The US ETF wrapper solved one problem for global capital by making Bitcoin easier to own through traditional finance. However, it placed a large share of that access in the US market. Hong Kong’s version is about local control over the wrapper. A regulated Hong Kong vehicle can speak to Asian investors in their own time zone, under regional rules, through a market they already use for equities, structured products, wealth management, and family-office capital. For a professional investor in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and even mainland China, this affects which lawyers review the product, which banks touch the money, which courts have jurisdiction, and which government agencies regulate it. Hong Kong has spent the past two years preparing for that role. Its Securities and Futures Commission has licensed virtual asset trading platforms, expanded the room for regulated products, and tried to improve market liquidity by allowing licensed platforms to connect with global order books under new rules. In November, the SFC said it would let locally licensed platforms share global order books with overseas affiliates, a practical concession designed to make Hong Kong’s crypto market less isolated and more useful for serious capital. The city is also focusing on stablecoins. Hong Kong passed a stablecoin bill in May 2025, creating a licensing framework for fiat-referenced issuers, and the regime went live in August of the same year. Standard Chartered, Animoca, and HKT were among the early names moving around the regulated HKD stablecoin race . Even though stablecoins sit in separate corners of the market, they point in the same direction as these Bitcoin derivatives: Hong Kong wants trading venues, stablecoin issuers, asset managers, and listed vehicles to operate under a rulebook it controls. That gives Alpha BTC more weight than a standard product launch has. It's the biggest part of an even bigger effort to convert crypto from an offshore activity into regulated capital formation. Related Reading Hong Kong activates stablecoin licensing on August 1 in major digital asset push Hong Kon