An unnamed Hong Kong company has disclosed a $436 million position in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, increasing speculation that Chinese capital is flowing into the cryptocurrency through an offshore side door.
Previously unknown Laurore Ltd. reported its stake in BlackRock Inc.’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The disclosure serves as a rare quantifiable signal that professional wealth managers in the Asian financial hub are quietly building bridges to digital assets through regulated US investment vehicles.
The filings come at a complicated juncture for the crypto market, as risk appetite has cooled in the U.S., although demand remains strong in jurisdictions with improved regulatory transparency.
Although the identity of the ultimate beneficiaries behind Lalor remains hidden, market observers suggest the structure features sophisticated access measures designed to avoid capital controls and reputational risks.
How much is IBIT invested and why is it important?
Laurore’s standing is large enough to stand out on its own, and it’s built in a way that makes it difficult to ignore.
On Form 13F for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, Mr. Lauroll reported owning 8,786,279 shares of IBIT stock valued at approximately $436.2 million. The application lists an address in Central, Hong Kong, and is signed by a director named Zhang Hui.
To put its holdings into context, IBIT is one of the largest open market gateways to BTC. As of February 17, the fund reported net assets of approximately $51.5 billion and approximately 1.34 billion shares outstanding.
Lalor’s 8.79 million shares represent about 0.65% of the ETF’s total outstanding shares, less than 1% of the product, but are meaningful for new applicants.
But what made this disclosure stand out was not just the amount, but also the opacity of the application.
Jeff Park, ProCap’s chief investment officer, noted that Laure is a new company with no website, no press coverage, and no digital footprint beyond filing with the SEC.
Park described “Zhang Hui” as the Chinese equivalent of “John Smith” and called it an “anonymous name that is not anonymous.”
He also pointed to the “Ltd” suffix, which he said suggests a Cayman Islands or British Virgin Islands structure, a classic offshore wrapper for accessing the U.S. market.
On the other hand, he noted that the portfolio consists only of IBIT stocks and does not include other stocks, technology stocks or hedges.
This represents an investment vehicle designed for specific exposure, rather than a broader US portfolio that happens to include a BTC allocation.
Furthermore, Park linked that structure to motivation.
He said Chinese investors cannot legally hold bitcoin directly, and suggested that if the filings reflect what he suspects, it could be an early sign that Chinese institutional investors are flowing into bitcoin through regulated U.S. ETFs rather than through exchanges or gray market routes.
He described this setup as working through what he called the most “transparent and opaque” locations imaginable.
That framework is important, as spot BTC ETFs have become the simplest institutional wrapper for holding Bitcoin exposure.
For allocators who don’t want to manage custody, exchange access, or in-house crypto infrastructure, large, highly liquid ETFs can handle most of the operational burden.
Other Hong Kong companies have disclosed similar circumstances.
Lalor is not an isolated case and appears to be part of a broader pattern of Hong Kong-based managers using US ETFs to gain exposure to BTC.
Another Hong Kong-based filer, Avenir Tech Limited, previously reported in its 13F filing for the quarter ended March 31, 2025 that it owned 14,766,760 shares of IBIT, valued at approximately $691.2 million.
At the same time, another Hong Kong-based company, Yong Rong Asset Management Ltd, also has limited exposure to Bitcoin funds.
These filings are noteworthy given that the region also has its own Bitcoin fund.
However, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas previously explained that the combination of low fees and high volumes makes U.S. ETFs attractive.
Essentially, as the ETF market continues to mature, the likelihood of quieter vehicles emerging increases.
Why does Hong Kong continue to appear even though China’s position has not changed?
Hong Kong’s role is central to this story because it is close enough to mainland Chinese capital and networks to serve as a bridge, while offering a different regulatory posture than Beijing.
Mainland China’s official position on cryptocurrency trading remains restrictive, with authorities repeatedly indicating that speculative activity is not welcome.
However, over the past two years, Hong Kong has established itself as a compliant, financial institution-friendly gateway for digital assets, including through its licensing regime and push to expand its market infrastructure.
Hong Kong last year relaxed certain virtual asset rules, including allowing domestically licensed platforms to share their global order books with overseas affiliates, to facilitate trading and liquidity.
The same policy push also includes a tokenization pilot aimed at bringing “real value” use cases on-chain, an approach presented as financial modernization rather than speculative crypto trading.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government has taken a more hostile attitude toward the growth of emerging industries.
Earlier this month, China’s financial regulator expanded its existing ban on cryptocurrencies to include the issuance of stablecoins and the tokenization of real-world assets.
According to authorities:
“(We) reiterate that virtual currencies do not have the same legal status as legal tender, that conducting virtual currency-related business activities within China constitutes illegal financial activities, and that overseas organizations and individuals are prohibited from illegally providing virtual currency-related services to domestic entities in any form.”
However, this effectively shows that the different regulatory paths of China and Hong Kong can coexist.
Hong Kong could pursue the development of a regulated market, and the mainland could maintain restrictions on direct cryptocurrency trading and tokenization of assets.
In that situation, a Hong Kong entity holding a US-listed BTC ETF could be structured to move the most politically sensitive elements away from the mainland, even if it maintains similar economic exposure.
On the other hand, it does not mean that the capital is mainland institutional funds.
But that means this architecture exists for capital from the mainland to express exposure while reducing operational friction and potential reputational risk.
(Tag translation) Bitcoin
