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HONG KONG, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Shares of crypto exchange HashKey Holdings climbed 6.6% in their Hong Kong market debut on Wednesday after an initial public offering that raised $206 million.
HashKey, founded in 2018, offers a wide range of services including asset management, brokerage, and tokenisation in addition to running the Asian financial hub's largest licensed crypto exchange.
Its shares were last trading at HK$7.12, compared to the IPO price of HK$6.68. By comparison, the Hang Seng Index was up just 0.2%.
Demand for the institutional investor tranche of HashKey's IPO reached 5.5 times the amount of stock on offer, the company's filings showed. The retail tranche was nearly 394 times oversubscribed.
Mainland China banned cryptocurrency trading in 2021 and authorities there have recently renewed their warnings about virtual currencies. But Hong Kong, which operates under a freer economic system, has embraced digital assets as it seeks to strengthen its reputation as a leading financial hub.
($1 = 7.7779 Hong Kong dollars)
Asset management spans venture investing in Web3 projects and secondary market products such as exchange-traded funds and actively managed crypto funds.
The company expects to receive net proceeds of about HK$1.43B after fees and expenses if the deal prices at the top of the range.
IPO Proceeds Target Product Innovation Custody Upgrades And Deeper Liquidity
It plans to spend a large share on product innovation and new offerings, including more regulated derivatives and yield products, and on building shared liquidity across venues and upgrading its custody systems to support more chains and tokens.
Another portion is earmarked for on-chain innovation, such as a crypto as a service platform for institutions and further investment in staking infrastructure, as well as hiring engineering and research talent.
HashKey also intends to devote capital to infrastructure and cloud services so its trading platforms can handle spikes in activity without outages, and to strengthening risk management and compliance systems in line with Hong Kong’s virtual asset rules.
Management argues that this combination of scale, licensing and infrastructure will help the group capture the next wave of institutional adoption as more investors rotate from loosely supervised exchanges into onshore, regulated venues.
The listing lands at a delicate time for both Hong Kong and the crypto market. The city has approved licences for 11 exchanges under its new framework but has not yet brought in global giants such as Binance or Coinbase, even as it tries to position itself against Singapore, Dubai, and other centres competing for crypto firms.
This article has been published in reuters.com via Yahoo News.
Crypto exchange HashKey shares end flat in volatile Hong Kong trading debut
Cryptocurrency exchange HashKey Holdings Ltd made a flat debut in Hong Kong on Wednesday amid recent weakness in digital assets, but its management said it remains confident about the sector's long-term prospects. On Wednesday, Xiao Feng, HashKey's chairman and chief executive, said he was...
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