Shares of digital asset firm Hashkey Group start trading in Hong Kong today, following the firm’s IPO last week. The Chinese city has steadily embraced digital assets since 2022 as it tries to maintain its status as a global financial center.
Hashkey Group, founded in 2018, operates a Hong Kong-licensed crypto exchange, the city’s largest. According to its IPO prospectus, Hashkey’s exchange has facilitated 1.7 trillion Hong Kong dollars ($218 billion) in trading volume as of Sep. 30, 2025. The broader group also offers on-chain services, like staking and tokenization, as well as asset management services. Hashkey generated 283 million Hong Kong dollars ($36 million) in revenue for the first half of 2025, a 26% year-on-year drop, according to the prospectus.
Hashkey raised 1.6 billion Hong Kong dollars ($206 million) in its IPO, both Bloomberg and Reuters reported, citing an unnamed source.
Hong Kong has tentatively embraced cryptocurrencies and digital assets as a way to shore up its status as an international financial center. The city, alongside Singapore, was one of the first jurisdictions in Asia to set up a licensing regime for cryptocurrency exchanges. Eleven exchanges, including Hashkey’s, are currently licensed to operate in Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong has established one of Asia’s most clear and proactive regulatory frameworks for digital assets,” says Anna Liu, CEO of HashKey Tokenization, the group’s dedicated tokenization division. The Chinese city serves as a “strategic gateway,” linking “Eastern and Western markets” and “traditional finance with digital innovation.”
Hong Kong earlier this year set up a licensing scheme for stablecoins, which generated interest from crypto companies and investors due to the stability of the Hong Kong dollar. Hong Kong’s market regulator is considering allowing crypto firms to connect their local exchanges to their global platforms, allowing Hong Kong-based customers to trade with those based outside the city.
Measures like the stablecoin ordinance “provide the certainty that institutional capital requires,” Liu says. “This clearly transforms Hong Kong’s [crypto sector] from a speculative market into a predictable and compliant environment for serious builders and long-term investors.”
Hong Kong’s exploration of cryptocurrencies is in stark contrast to mainland China, which still bans trading of digital currencies. (The city’s governance system allows it to have separate policies and regulations from the rest of China). Crypto observers sometimes see Hong Kong’s embrace of digital currencies as a leading indicator of how Beijing might approach digital assets in the future.
While Liu didn’t share thoughts on China’s plans for digital assets, she noted that “regulatory clarity is good for the industry, so that we know which countries and regions we can do something in. It gives us more clarity on the boundaries and red lines.”
Several other crypto companies have gone public this year, including stablecoin provider Circle, and crypto exchanges Bullish and Gemini. Circle and Bullish raised over $1 billion in their IPOs, as investors gravitated to crypto following the Trump administration’s friendliness towards digital assets, including through measures like the GENIUS Act, which lays the groundwork for new U.S. dollar stablecoins.
Yet crypto shares have performed poorly in the second half of the year. Circle shares have lost 70% of their value since their peak in June. Bullish and Gemini shares have lost over 30% and 60% respectively since their trading debuts in the late summer.
Cryptocurrencies too have fallen since their peak in October, with Bitcoin down about 30% and Ether down about 40%, amid broader jitters about geopolitical tensions, fears of an AI bubble, and hidden weaknesses in financial markets.
HashKey’s trading debut is the latest in a flurry of debuts in Hong Kong, as companies flood back to the city’s stock exchange hoping to tap the city’s connections to both mainland Chinese and global pools of capital. Hong Kong is back on top of the world’s IPO rankings for the first time since 2019, according to KPMG, with the two major U.S. exchanges in second and third place.
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