HONG KONG, April 22 (Reuters) - Chinese crypto tycoon Li Lin plans to move a trading system and team from his family office to Hong Kong-listed Bitfire โGroup (1611.HK), opens new tab, where he is the largest shareholder, in an effort to โtap into demand for digital assets among investors and institutions.
Bitfire, a wealth-management firm, on Wednesday said it had agreed to buy the investment team and trading systems of Avenir Group, โLi's family office, for $1.6 million.
Li, from China's Hunan province, built Huobi - now โknown as HTX - into one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, โ before a Beijing crackdown reshaped the industry.
Cryptocurrency trading has been banned in mainland China โsince 2021, while Hong Kong is striving to become a virtual asset hub
After โselling a controlling stake in Huobi for about $1 billion to crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun in 2022, Li shifted his focus to his family office.
With the acquisition, Bitfire plans to raise external โmoney to provide regulated bitcoin-denominated asset management services, called the "Alpha BTC" strategy, said โLivio Weng, CEO of Bitfire, in an interview.
Weng said the strategy would seek to attract investment โequivalent โ to more than 10,000 bitcoins - worth around $760 million - within a year.Weng said the strategy would seek to attract investment โequivalent โ to more than 10,000 bitcoins - worth around $760 million - within a year.
Market demand for such products is huge," Weng said, as a growing number of local firms are holding bitcoin, though they lack ways to make gains from the digital currency.
The โstrategy will generate profits โvia derivatives trading, โ such as options, using bitcoin or IBIT ETF (IBIT.O), opens new tab as the underlying asset, he said, adding that both crypto-native investors and โHong Kong-based firms would be the target clients.
At least 40 โHong Kong-listed โ companies have bitcoin holdings, according to Bitfire estimates.
Bitcoin was last trading at around $76,000, rebounding from a weak first quarter amid heavy volatility.
Since 2024, Avenir has become Asia's largest โ bitcoin โETF investor. The firm held 18.3 million shares โof BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust with a valuation of $908 million as of the end of 2025, according โto its regulatory filing.
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