Are Chinese Firms Secretly Buying Bitcoin? The Mystery $436M Hong Kong BlackRock ETF Bet ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’
- Finance
ThePostMaster- 0
- 8 minutes read
Key Takeaways
A mysterious Hong Kong entity, Laurore Ltd., disclosed a $436 million stake in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT).
Crypto industry leaders are speculating whether the structure could be a workaround for mainland Chinese investors.
If Chinese-linked institutional money is quietly entering via offshore vehicles, it could boost long-term Bitcoin liquidity.
A newly disclosed $436 million stake in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund has sparked speculation that capital from China could be quietly entering the U.S. crypto market—despite Beijing’s sweeping ban on cryptocurrency trading.
The position, revealed in a recent U.S. regulatory filing, shows a previously unknown Hong Kong-based entity, Laurore Ltd., holding shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), BlackRock’s flagship spot Bitcoin ETF.
Jeff Park, an adviser at crypto asset manager Bitwise, first highlighted the Laurore Ltd. position on Tuesday in a post on X.
The filing shows that Laurore Ltd. was newly established and holds a single asset: IBIT shares valued at approximately $436 million.
Limited public information exists about the Bitcoin ETF filer. The filer, listed as “Zhang Hui,” a common name in China, operates through an entity based in Hong Kong.
Park described the structure as “a $436 million Bitcoin access vehicle dressed in institutional clothing,” noting that the “Ltd.” suffix often indicates an offshore corporate vehicle such as those commonly incorporated in the Cayman Islands or British Virgin Islands.
He suggested that the name and structure could represent what he called a “non-anonymous anonymous” setup, something difficult to trace due to its generic identifiers.
“Why would you do this? Because Chinese investors can’t hold Bitcoin,” he wrote.
Park said that if it is what it looks like, it might be an “early sign of institutional Chinese capital moving into Bitcoin.”
Mainland China prohibits investors from trading crypto domestically, but Hong Kong enforces a separate legal and financial system.
Offshore vehicles structured in jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands are frequently used by global investors to access U.S. markets.
If the IBIT stake does represent capital tied to mainland China, it would suggest a shift in how Chinese money gains exposure to digital assets.
Such a development could also have broader implications.
U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs, including IBIT, have been viewed as a bridge between traditional finance and crypto markets.
