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Author: Xie Zhaoqing, Source: Tencent News “Vision”
The Hong Kong financial circle is re-narrative, and the currency circle, which was originally alienated from the traditional financial circle, has become the mainstream of this new narrative.When the concepts of stablecoins and RWA were in full swing, the DAT wind blew from the United States to Hong Kong again.
The so-called DAT is the abbreviation of Digital Asset Treasury.In the currency circle, DAT usually refers to a company or entity that holds and manages cryptocurrencies.In the current context, DAT is mostly a listed company entity that purchases tokens such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or solana through the open market. Industry insiders call this action “coin storing” and make these tokens the company’s core assets. Subsequently, the stock prices of listed companies fluctuate with the price of currency fluctuations.In the traditional financial circle, their phenomenon is called “coin-stock linkage”.
“Coin-stock linkage is a hot word in the Hong Kong secondary market and currency circle in the past period.” A person in charge of a US listed company said that his listed company already holds a lot of Bitcoin.
On August 27 alone, he participated in 8 events in Hong Kong, most of which involved coin-stock linkage, including the establishment ceremony of the “Hong Kong Digital Asset Listed Companies Federation” held at Four Seasons Hotel, the forum held by Xinhuo Technology at Grand Hyatt Hotel, and the forum of Binance founder Zhao Changpeng at the University of Hong Kong. The content of these events involved coin-stock linkage.
Zhao Changpeng said on the spot that some companies’ financial departments, listed companies, and even state-owned enterprises, central enterprises, etc. cannot directly buy digital currencies such as Bitcoin, but through the DAT model, these companies can indirectly hold digital currencies such as Bitcoin, which is the significance of the DAT model.He also believes that this group is actually very large in scale, much larger than the currency circle.He also revealed that Binance Group is actively participating in similar projects recently.
Tencent News “Cantonese” learned that Hong Kong has already received state-owned enterprises’ investments and has been actively planning projects for coin-share linkage during the past period.A financial person in Hong Kong told Tencent News “Cantone” that because the money of state-owned enterprises cannot directly invest in funds related to the currency circle, but they can buy stocks, “there is no restrictions on the stocks of listed companies holding Bitcoin.”
Public data shows that Boya Interactive, Huajian Medical, etc. among the member companies of the Hong Kong Digital Asset Listed Companies Association have already held a lot of Bitcoin and Ethereum through the open market.
A representative of a listed company at the founding conference of the “Hong Kong Digital Asset Listed Companies Federation” told Tencent News “Cantone” that its company also has plans to hoard coins in the future.According to his understanding, many member units in the association are also launching similar plans one after another.Public data shows that the association has a total of 49 member units, including 9 US stock companies, two Shenzhen GEM companies, and the rest are Hong Kong-listed companies.
Chinese circleCoin stock linkage boom: Zhao Changpeng and Li Lin and other cryptocurrency giants have flocked to the “coin hoarding” army
The currency-stock linkage has set off a craze in the US stock market more than half a year ago.US listed companies buy Bitcoin or Ethereum through the open market, making the company a DAT specializing in coin hoarding. Their stock price has followed the soaring of Bitcoin, thus gaining a rise in the traditional stock market.
American billionaire Michael Saylor is the pathfinder and successful person of this model.In 2020, as the founder and chairman of the US-listed software company Strategy (formerly known as Micro Strategy), he announced that he would include Bitcoin in its balance sheet.
His operation is very simple: issuing bonds or issuing stocks – raising money to buy Bitcoin – expecting the rise in the currency price and the “premium” of the company’s stocks to bring excess returns, that is, the stock price rises.During this period, when the stock price continued to rise, Strategy continued to issue bonds or issue stocks to raise funds, and then bought Bitcoin, and thus cycled.
Although Michael Sailer has been “shouting orders” for many years since 2020, Wall Street traders have flocked to the market to regard the stock as the representative of the world’s largest Bitcoin holder, and buying positions is in 2024, when Strategy’s stock price has been rising.
Industry insiders explained that because 2024 is the early stage of the bull market after Bitcoin’s fourth halving (April 20), the price of Bitcoin rose from about $45,000 at the beginning of the year to a high of about $103,000 (December 2024).MicroStrategy’s share price is highly correlated with its Bitcoin holdings.
Public data shows that since the first purchase of Bitcoin in August 2022, Strategy’s stock price has soared by about 30 times, and its market value is now close to US$100 billion, comparable to Starbucks – which is far exceeding Bitcoin’s own 11 times increase in the same period.As of the second quarter, Strategy held approximately 630,000 bitcoins.
This also gave early traders involved in Strategy’s stock position to amazing returns.
Other companies have also begun to compete to replicate Strategy’s strategy.Architect Partners, a currency data company, reported that in the U.S. stock market, there were 90 listed companies with Bitcoin on their balance sheets in the first quarter, while in the second quarter, the figure was 142.At the same time, in the first half of 2025, a total of 61 listed U.S. stock companies announced plans to raise $30.6 billion to purchase digital currencies such as Bitcoin, most of which occurred in the second quarter.
“There has never been such a large-scale coin buying action in the currency circle.” A head of a US listed company who has been deeply involved in the currency circle for many years said in Hong Kong.His listed company also holds a lot of Bitcoin.
This craze has begun to spread to Asia, such as Japan.Public data shows that the most well-known imitator in Japan is Metaplanet Inc, known as the “Asian version of Strategy”.Metaplanet, an economical hotel company that once worked hard to make profits in Japan, transformed into buying Bitcoin for the first time in May 2024.As of September 3, the company now holds 20,000 Bitcoins, ranking sixth in the world in terms of holding Bitcoins.
Compared with Japan’s radicalism, Hong Kong’s currency hoarding craze has just begun.Public data shows that the listed company that holds the most Bitcoin in the Hong Kong stock market is Boya Interactive.As of the end of August, the company had 3,670 holdings.
In the past period of time, listed companies including Huajian Medical, Huaxing Capital, Yunfeng Finance, Coolpad and other listed companies have successively announced their subscription of tokens such as Ethereum, Binance Coin, Bitcoin, etc. to be used as the company’s balance sheet assets.Before this, a few companies including Meitu and Guofu Quantum had already held digital currency assets such as Bitcoin, but the holding volume was not large.
Data provided by Zhang Huachen, president of the Hong Kong Digital Asset Listed Companies Association, currently, if only the market value of digital assets held and the market value of digital assets involved in the application and operation of compliance licenses is calculated, the overall market value does not exceed US$2 billion.
Tencent News “Cantonese” learned that among the 49 member units of the Hong Kong Digital Asset Listed Companies Association, there are 38 Hong Kong-listed companies. Most of these 40 listed companies have the idea of hoarding coins or expanding their hoarding plans, including Guofu Quantum.The total market value of these member units is about US$20 billion.However, Tencent News “Vision” has not yet learned about the specific coin hoarding plans of these companies.
Zhang Huachen, who had been involved in the currency circle for many years, was relatively optimistic. He believed that listed companies are the best medium to open up the liquidity of traditional finance and digital assets. Hong Kong-listed companies still have a lot of room for exploration of currency-share linkage between the current holdings of currency and market value of listed companies in Hong Kong.
Compared with DAT companies, Hong Kong’s capital side is more enthusiastic about hoarding coins.YZi Labs, a home-run company under Zhao Changpeng, has begun to make arrangements in Asia, including the Hong Kong market.Public data shows that the family office manages more than US$10 billion in assets.
In the past period of time, Ella Zhang, the head of the home office, has frequently launched business in Asia, hoping to increase BNB’s coin hoarding projects and future ecological construction, including the announcement at the end of August to support a fund company called B strategy to raise $1 billion to carry out the “coin hoarding” activity.This is also the first “BNB” version of DAT company supported by the Zhao Changpeng family in Asia. So far, it has provided the largest funding force worldwide.
Earlier, YZi Labs also announced support for Huaxing Capital Holdings’ $100 million Binance Coin (BNB) project, hoping that the latter can become the “BNB strategy of Hong Kong stocks. However, after Huaxing Capital Holdings announced the plan on August 22, its share price rose slightly from HK$8.6 per share to HK$9.14 and began to fall.
Tencent News “Cantonese” learned that the main members of the founding team of B strategy fund are based in Hong Kong, but the specific target of the listed company has not yet been announced, and it is very likely that it is a US stock company.
An insider familiar with YZi Labs told Tencent News “Vision” that in the past period, the Hong Kong financial circle has talked about cooperation with YZi Labs. According to his understanding, there may be hundreds of people (or teams), and they may be implemented one after another.
YZi Labs, as the investor, provides funds to asset management companies such as Huaxing Capital and B strategy. The latter buys tokens based on its own listed company platform, or finds a listed company as the main body, and the latter buys tokens.
At the same time, Li Lin, one of the three major Chinese giants in the currency circle that has been stationed in Hong Kong, also began to “stock up on coins” projects.
On August 27, Xinhuo Technology, a Hong Kong-listed company under Li Lin, stated that it would invest US$500 million to launch the “coin hoarding” project, and the project scale is currently unlimited.On the afternoon of August 28, Weng Xiaoqi, CEO of Xinhuo Technology, revealed to Tencent News “Cantonese” that the project is very popular in the Hong Kong market and the investor subscription amount has exceeded US$500 million.
In addition, Tencent News “Ciwan” learned that Chinese investors in the currency circle, Shen Bo, founder of Meitu, and others have also begun to engage in the “coin hoarding” project one after another.
The home game of coin hoarding games is in the United States, and Hong Kong is more suitable for linking and fundraising
“Hong Kong’s coin hoarding craze is not on the asset side, that is, the target of listed companies, but on the capital side, that is, the funds to purchase digital currencies such as Bitcoin.” A Hong Kong financial circle person who is planning a coin hoarding project told Tencent News “Cantone” that many people in Hong Kong are very interested in joining the coin hoarding plan, rather than creating a Hong Kong version of the strategy in Hong Kong stocks.
This is related to the flexibility of fundraising in the Hong Kong stock market.According to the rules of the game of coin hoarding projects, the most important thing for listed entities is to raise funds: issuing bonds or issuing stocks – raising money to buy Bitcoin – expecting the rise in the coin price and the “premium” of the company’s stocks to bring excess returns.As the stock price rises, listed companies continue to issue bonds or issue stocks to raise funds, and continue to buy Bitcoin, and cycle in this way.
This is also called the “flywheel theory” by some industry insiders. The more Bitcoin a listed company buys, the higher its stock price will rise, so that it can raise more funds to buy more Bitcoin.
“Traditional stock exchanges have natural and abundant financing tools. In this regard, the US stock market is much more flexible than the Hong Kong market.” An executive of a listed US stock company told Tencent News “Cantone” that this is also the reason why many coin hoarding projects seek cooperation with his US stock companies.
In addition to issuing bonds, the commonly used financing tools for coin hoarding projects in the US stock market are PIPE and ATM (at the market offering) for issuing stocks.The common point between the two is that they are more flexible and faster than other financing methods. Among them, PIPE can quickly obtain regulatory approval within a few days and raise funds for non-public investors, similar to the Hong Kong stock market private placement.
ATMs need to submit a registration statement (usually S-3 form) to the SEC to explain the issuance scale and plan, and accept dual supervision from SEC and FINRA, but the issuance can be carried out at any point in time.
This is equivalent to obtaining a credit line, listed companies can sell stocks to the open market in stages and raise funds in real time based on market prices. The subsequent stock selling behavior can last for several months or even longer.This fundraising method is also called “money printing machine” fundraising, which is relatively simple and efficient.
However, this also has some restrictions. The amount of funds raised through this model every year cannot exceed one-third of the market value of listed companies’ circulating shares.Hong Kong mainly raises funds through private placement, allotment and issuance of new shares, but every fundraising requires supervision and approval, and complete approval process is completed.
In terms of fundraising tools, US listed companies are obviously more flexible than Hong Kong stocks.Take strategy as an example. Since 2024, the company has raised funds through PIPE and ATM many times, especially in the past year, the company has raised more than US$4 billion and US$24 billion in these two methods respectively.
As of September 2, strategy had a market capitalization of more than $98.85 billion, holding 629,370 bitcoins, with a market capitalization of about $70 billion, and its cost of holding bitcoins was about $73,320,000 each.
“Hong Kong is still a paradise for rich people, and the big guys in the currency circle are accustomed to gathering in Hong Kong.” An investor who has been rooted in the currency circle for many years told Tencent News “Cantonese” that Hong Kong is suitable for big guys to gather together to save projects, find money or raise money, but in the end the project is implemented, you have to go to the United States.
In the past period of time, Hong Kong has launched many activities involving the currency circle, including active big shots including but not limited to Justin Sun, Li Lin, Zhao Changpeng and others.
However, they still believe that the United States is the home field of currency-stock linkage. In addition to the convenient financing of listed entities, the liquidity of US stocks is also much better than that of Hong Kong.After the stock prices of these coin hoarding companies rise, they need sufficient liquidity to support them.
Rich people’s game: a single project funding scale of at least $1 billion
Some more cautious investors believe that the market has begun to see an unreasonable gold rush for coin hoarding.These coin hoarding companies quickly and largely replicate the strtategy model in batches, raise funds from traditional financial markets, and then purchase tokens such as Bitcoin, which has become the core of coin hoarding projects.This also includes many listed companies with small market value and poor quality.
At the same time, some coin hoarding companies that failed to buy tokens such as Bitcoin as expected by the market have begun to be abandoned by some investors, and their stock prices have also begun to fall.
The most prominent case is the world’s sixth largest Bitcoin buyer, Metaplanet, Japan.The company’s share price fell from its highest 1,895 yen per share in mid-June to a closing price of 853 yen on September 2, down more than 50%.Before that, in early 2025, after announcing its transformation into a coin hoarding company, its stock price once rose by more than 4 times.
On September 1, the company announced that it had obtained shareholder approval to adopt a financing proposal that could raise up to 555 billion yen (about $3.8 billion) through issuing preferred shares to broaden its financing channels after the share price plummeted.
The company also appointed Trump’s son Eric trump as a member of the newly established advisory board – which is equivalent to inviting Eric trump to “shout orders” together with celebrity effect, which is a very typical way of playing the currency circle.I don’t know how the effect is, but judging from the market performance on September 2, Metaplanet’s stock price is unmoved – for a short time, their celebrity orders have not been effective.
This is also a warning for latecomers who have entered the coin hoarding game. To use the United States as the home court of coin hoarding games: Wall Street + coin games, it needs a large enough and liquid market to take over, while Japan is not an ideal market.
“It’s not much more meaningful to do a coin hoarding project in small amounts.” Many Hong Kong people who are planning coin hoarding projects expressed similar views on Tencent News “Venior”.They believe that hoarding a top currency and trying to achieve the top three in the volume and market value of coins. “The ranking is actually not very meaningful.” They unanimously believe that the scale of the $1 billion coin hoarding project has the opportunity to reach the top three in the market.
An asset management person who is preparing to hoard coins and projects told Tencent News “Cantone” that a good hoard coins and projects require “three reliable” items, namely reliable token underlying assets, reliable project supporters (which can be understood as token fund parties, such as BNB’s supported by Zhao Changpeng’s family), and reliable teams. This is also why hundreds of teams are now “besieging” the Zhao Changpeng family’s office and hoping to obtain support.
More radicals believe that if there are no tokens stocked up with a large amount of funds, it means that these tokens may be abandoned by the market.There are already many listed companies hoarding Bitcoin now, and the market value of strategy, the number one, has exceeded US$98.8 billion.
Tencent News “Cantonese” learned that the big guys who are in the future in Hong Kong have not yet decided to stock up on Bitcoin, and more choose BNB, Ethereum, Solana and other currencies.For example, Yunfeng Finance, which is owned by Jack Ma, and the coin hoarding fund under Xinhuo Technology, are mainly focused on Ethereum.
Earlier on September 2, Yunfeng Financial announced that the board of directors had approved the purchase of Ethereum as a company’s reserve asset in the open market.As of the date of announcement, the group has purchased a total of 10,000 ETH, with a total investment of US$44 million (about RMB 314 million).
Weng Xiaoqi, CEO of Xinhuo Technology, told Tencent News “Vision” that compared with Bitcoin, Ethereum’s coin hoarding project has a greater premium space.
Public data shows that bitmine has the largest market value in Ethereum coin hoarding companies. As of September 2, its market value was US$7.75 billion, holding 1.71 million Ethereum – far lower than strategy’s market value of nearly US$100 billion.Ark Investment (ARK), a well-known American investor “Miss Wood”, bought more than $200 million in bitmine’s stock, including more than $30 million that ARK continued to buy after bitmine continued to fall in the past few days.
A traditional Hong Kong institutional investor who has been buying bitmine for the past period of time told Tencent News “Cantone” that the coin hoarding project is overheating in the United States, and even the share price of bitmine, which holds the most Ethereum, has weakened its share price. Other currencies, including Binance Co., may also face this situation.
He does not agree with the view that “as long as there is a larger scale of funds and a concentrated stockpile of a certain token, the stock price will definitely rise.”
Correspondingly, his view is even more pessimistic: he cannot see the future of the coin hoarding project for the time being. After all, these listed companies raise funds through the traditional financial market to buy tokens such as Bitcoin at market prices. But in fact, these companies did not really generate revenue. For example, Strategy’s revenue was only US$150 million, while Starbucks, with the same market value, had revenue of more than US$7.5 billion.
What he is more worried about is that Bitcoin is in a rising period now, and the logic of currency-stock linkage seems to be correct. Once Bitcoin starts to decline, what will these coin hoarding companies do?
Listed companies that are flocking to crazy coin hoarding may not want to know the exact answer.
