Crypto tycoon to move trading system to Bitfire ​Group

Bitfire on Wednesday said it had agreed to buy the investment team and trading systems of Avenir Group, ​Li’s family office, for $1.6 million

Chinese crypto tycoon Li Lin plans to move a trading system and team from his family office to Hong Kong-listed Bitfire ​Group, where he is the largest shareholder, in an effort to ‌tap 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, ​Li’s family office, for $1.6 million.

Li built Huobi – now ​known as HTX – into one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, ⁠before a Beijing crackdown on the industry.

Cryptocurrency trading has been banned in mainland China ​since 2021, while Hong Kong is striving to become a virtual asset hub.

After ​selling a controlling stake in Huobi for around $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 ​money to provide regulated bitcoin-denominated asset management services, called the “Alpha BTC” strategy, said ​Livio Weng, CEO of Bitfire, in an interview.

Weng said the strategy would seek to attract investment ‌equivalent ⁠to more than 10,000 bitcoins – worth nearly $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 ​strategy will generate profits ​via derivatives trading, ⁠such as options, using bitcoin or IBIT ETF as the underlying asset, he said, adding that both crypto-native investors and ​Hong Kong-based firms would be the target clients.