Author: Nancy, PANews
HashKey is accelerating its quest to become Hong Kong's first cryptocurrency stock. On December 1st, HashKey Holdings Limited (HashKey) passed its listing hearing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's main board, with JPMorgan Chase, Guotai Haitong Securities, and Guotai Junan International acting as joint sponsors, marking a crucial step towards the capital market. The 663-page hearing documents released comprehensively disclose HashKey's business model, operations, financial performance, and future strategic plans.
Having passed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing hearing, it is expected to be listed as early as January next year.
Months ago, news broke that HashKey planned to IPO in Hong Kong. In October of this year, as more and more cryptocurrency exchanges prepared for IPOs, Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that HashKey had confidentially submitted its IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, planning to raise up to US$500 million (approximately RMB 3.9 billion) and aiming to complete its listing within this year.
HashKey has announced that it has passed the listing hearing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's main board and is currently in the listing preparation stage. According to the Hong Kong IPO process, the company first submits a listing application (form submission), and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange then conducts inquiries and reviews of the materials. The hearing is a crucial step, signifying that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has reviewed the company's submitted materials and their compliance, and has granted "approval in principle."
Typically, from passing the hearing to the official listing, it takes about 3 weeks to 1 month to complete subsequent processes such as roadshows, pricing, and IPOs. If all goes smoothly, HashKey is expected to be officially listed as early as January 2026.
According to the draft prospectus, the IPO will combine international placement with a Hong Kong public offering, but the price range, the number of shares to be issued, and the ratio of public offering to placement are still under discussion. The par value is US$0.00001 per share, and the final offering price will be determined through negotiations between the overall coordinators (JPMorgan Chase and Guotai Junan International) and the company, expected to be finalized by the end of 2025, and will not exceed the upper limit stated in the draft prospectus.
However, according to previous reports, the maximum target fundraising size for this IPO is US$500 million (approximately HK$3.9 billion).
The document states that the funds raised are expected to be used for technology and infrastructure upgrades, market expansion and ecosystem collaborations, operations and risk management, as well as working capital and general corporate purposes.
Following the IPO, HashKey's major shareholders include Lu Weiding, GDZ International (wholly owned by Lu Weiding), HashKey Fintech III, Puxing Energy, and XChainX. Other institutional shareholders include Hillhouse Capital, Fidelity, Meitu, Shengshi Wealth, CDH Investments, People's Capital, and OKG Venture.
In February of this year, HashKey announced a $30 million strategic financing round, in which Gaorong Capital participated with a valuation exceeding $1.5 billion. This is significantly lower than the valuations of other exchanges planning to go public, such as Kraken (valued at $20 billion), Upbit (valued at $10.3 billion), and Gemini (valued at approximately $3.3 billion).
Institutional users dominate, and trading business becomes the mainstay of revenue.
HashKey is a mature, comprehensive digital asset company in Asia with a full portfolio of 13 licenses and registrations worldwide, covering Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Bermuda, the UAE, and Ireland, giving it a strong compliance advantage.
According to the documents, HashKey's revenue mainly comes from transaction facilitation services, on-chain services, and asset management services.
Transaction facilitation services are HashKey's core business, accounting for 71.8% of its revenue. Since its launch in 2022, this business has gradually turned from a loss-making state to a profitable one, achieving annual revenue of nearly HK$5.17 billion in 2024, becoming HashKey's largest source of income.
In terms of trade facilitation services, HashKey Exchange is one of the few exchanges holding relevant licenses in every jurisdiction, and is authorized to provide services to both professional and retail investors. Based on trading volume in 2024, HashKey is the largest regional onshore platform in Asia and the largest exchange in Hong Kong, with a market share exceeding 75%. As of the end of 2024, the platform's assets had grown to HK$11.4 billion, exceeding HK$19.9 billion by the third quarter of 2025.
Institutional clients are the main driver of trading volume. As of June 30, 2025, HashKey Exchange had over 1,446,926 registered users, an 8.2% increase from the end of 2024, but only about 9.6% (138,517) actually deposited fiat currency or digital assets. Its clients primarily consist of institutional clients (including banks, asset management companies, family offices, hedge funds, and Web3 developers), Omnibus clients (such as licensed securities firms), ecosystem partners, and retail users. Institutional clients are the main force in trading. Approximately 273 institutional clients had an average monthly trading volume of HK$24.3 billion, about 4.7 times that of retail clients during the same period. Although the number of institutional clients is far less than that of retail clients, their trading volume is enormous, and their monetization rate has improved from 0.01% last year to 0.07%, indicating a significant improvement in the efficiency of their revenue contribution. In contrast, retail clients averaged 14,099 per month, completing a trading volume of HK$51.46 billion , with a monetization rate of 0.19%.
Looking at the geographical distribution of these users, they are mainly concentrated in Hong Kong. In the first half of 2025, the trading volume in the Hong Kong market reached HK$18.19 billion, more than ten times that of other institutions, but less than 60% of the previous year's volume. At the same time, trading volume in Bermuda also plummeted during the same period, mainly due to the obstruction of fiat currency deposit and withdrawal channels in the region.
On the on-chain services front, HashKey Cloud provides services specifically for institutional clients and is one of the first service providers in Hong Kong approved by the Securities and Futures Commission to support ETH ETF staking. As of September 30, 2025, HashKey Cloud managed HK$29 billion in staked assets, making it the largest staking service provider in Asia and the eighth largest globally. Meanwhile, HashKey Chain, as a compliant Ethereum Layer 2 extension network, has a total RWA value of HK$1.7 billion. As of June 30, 2025, on-chain service revenue reached HK$52.99 million, primarily from HK$27.46 million in staking/node verification revenue and HK$23.75 million in Web3 event revenue, the latter stemming from ticket sales and sponsorships for events such as the Web3 Carnival.
In asset management services, HashKey primarily provides digital asset investment opportunities to institutional clients. As of September 30, 2025, the company had total assets under management of HK$7.8 billion and had completed over 400 investments (including infrastructure, tools, applications, and service providers). The HashKey Blockchain Investment Fund achieved a return of over 10 times, demonstrating its robust performance in the institutional asset management sector. This business generated over HK$280 million in revenue in the first two quarters of this year, lower than the HK$380 million in the same period last year.
Across multiple business lines, HashKey's overall revenue has also achieved rapid growth, reaching HK$129 million, HK$208 million, HK$721 million, and HK$284 million in 2022, 2023, 2024, and the second quarter of 2025, respectively. It's worth noting that the documents disclose that HashKey's revenue was previously highly concentrated on a small number of clients. In 2022, the top five clients contributed 79.6% of total revenue, with the single largest client accounting for more than half. However, in recent years, the company's client structure has gradually diversified, and the revenue share of the top five clients and the single largest client has significantly decreased.
Facing profitability challenges, the platform has not yet initiated a buyback program for its platform token.
Despite this, HashKey has yet to achieve profitability. From 2022 to 2024, and in the first half of 2025, the company incurred losses of HK$585 million, HK$580 million, HK$1.19 billion, and HK$507 million, respectively. The company explained that the losses were due not only to the sluggish market but also primarily to the substantial upfront investments made in the early stages of business development, including obtaining regulatory approvals and licenses, building technological infrastructure, R&D and technology optimization, as well as brand building and market expansion. However, as platform transaction activity, customer assets, and product utilization have continued to grow, many core expenses have remained relatively stable.
However, HashKey's financial situation remains relatively strong. As of August 31, 2025, the company held HK$1.657 billion in cash and cash equivalents, and HK$592 million in digital assets, of which mainstream tokens such as BTC and ETH accounted for 84%, providing strong support for future business development. Based on the current average monthly cash consumption of approximately HK$40.9 million, it is expected to last for 40.5 months , but the company also stated that future business expansion is expected to generate positive cash flow.
HashKey also disclosed its future growth strategy and product innovation in the document, focusing on building a one-stop digital asset ecosystem, including creating a super app, expanding exchange products and services, launching a crypto bank card, and launching Crypto-as-a-Service and dedicated asset management services for enterprises based on HashKey Chain.
Furthermore, the document mentions HashKey's platform token, HSK, as a functional tool used to incentivize users, developers, and ecosystem partners. Its price is primarily influenced by overall market sentiment and investor expectations. According to the document, HSK's operating costs and expenses for 2022, 2023, 2024, and as of June 30, 2025, were HK$9.9 million, HK$70.8 million, HK$176 million, HK$82.9 million, and HK$123 million, respectively. This indicates that the issuance cost of HSK is a significant factor affecting profits. HSK usage is also relatively low, with usage rates of only 1.71% and 0.49% as of December 31, 2024, and June 30, 2025, respectively. To increase usability and liquidity, HashKey is also exploring expanding HSK into everyday financial scenarios, such as using it as a reward for spending on credit cards offered in partnership with commercial banks. It should be noted that, according to the white paper, HashKey promised to use 20% of its net profit to repurchase and destroy HSK in the market, but since the repurchase conditions have not been met during this period, it has not carried out any repurchase.
