Bitfire launches compliant crypto quant strategy as RWA assets top HK$2B

Bitfire Group has expanded its real-world asset business and launched what it calls Hong Kong’s first compliant crypto asset quantitative strategy after its profit-contributing assets under management climbed above HK$2 billion.

According to a press release shared with crypto.news, Bitfire Group said that the new strategy will use real-world assets as a core part of a market-neutral approach designed to capture arbitrage opportunities across crypto and artificial intelligence-related assets.

The Hong Kong-listed company, which trades under stock code 01611, said returns generated through the strategy would be packaged into asset management products for professional and institutional investors. Bitfire said the structure is designed to give eligible clients exposure to returns linked to crypto and AI assets without directly taking on their market volatility.

The launch is the first product announced under Bitfire’s expanded full-stack RWA operator business, which will cover asset management, trading and market-making, and custody.

Bitfire RWA business builds on 2025 restructuring

Since changing its strategy at the end of August 2025, Bitfire said it has added nearly 2,000 clients, including listed companies and their executives, family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. The company put the increase at more than 100 times its client count before the restructuring.

Assets under management that currently make a profitable contribution to the group, including asset management services operated by BitTrade in Japan, have passed HK$2 billion, according to the company. Bitfire said the figure has increased 851% from its pre-transformation level.

The expansion follows an earlier push into stablecoins and institutional asset management. In May, crypto.news reported on Bitfire after the company warned that its net loss for the six months through March could reach HK$245 million, compared with HK$12.3 million a year earlier. About HK$152 million of the expected loss was attributed to a decline in the value of crypto assets held by the company.

At the time, CEO Livio Weng described stablecoins as a core part of Hong Kong’s Web3 infrastructure and said the company planned to integrate compliant Hong Kong stablecoins into its clearing and settlement systems. Bitfire also said institutional and high-net-worth clients brought onto its platform after the August 2025 restructuring had shown demand for stablecoin services.

With the latest expansion, Bitfire said it plans to turn RWA issuance into financial services that can be invested in, traded, measured and allocated across portfolios.

RWA strategy targets market-neutral crypto returns

Under the quantitative strategy announced Wednesday, Bitfire will use RWA structures to connect native crypto assets, tokenized U.S. equities and traditional alternative assets.

The company said custody, quantitative asset management, trading and market-making infrastructure will support services covering those three asset groups. Its intended clients are professional and institutional investors seeking cross-asset allocation through a regulated structure.

Weng said many RWA products currently lack adequate compliance frameworks, asset backing and disclosure, which he said can create liquidity problems when markets become volatile.

“Many RWA products in the market lack compliant frameworks and genuine asset backing, with insufficient disclosure,” Weng said. “When volatility intensifies, liquidity crises and even collapses occur.”

According to Weng, long-term development of digital assets will require more attention to compliance, transparency and risk management. He said competition in Hong Kong’s regulated crypto market would increasingly depend on capabilities spanning custody, trading and asset management.

Bitfire described its full-stack model as an attempt to operate across both the issuance and circulation of tokenized assets. RWA asset management will form one part of the business, while trading and market-making will provide secondary-market functions and custody will support the safekeeping of assets.

Hong Kong tokenization activity reaches institutional products

Bitfire’s expansion follows several tokenization projects involving established financial institutions in Hong Kong this year.

On July 10, HSBC completed its first tokenized structured product issuance using U.S. dollar-denominated digital notes in a private placement for institutional investors in Hong Kong. Marketnode handled blockchain issuance and digital payment flows between HSBC and the investor.

The transaction placed the structured notes directly on blockchain infrastructure while keeping the product within an institutional securities framework. HSBC said the pilot was part of its work on digital issuance and settlement in capital markets.

Institutional activity has also extended into digital bonds. On June 12, Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation priced an HK$12 billion digital bond transaction, which it described as the world’s largest tokenized bond issuance at the time. Orders reached about HK$24 billion equivalent and came from more than 100 institutional accounts across Hong Kong, mainland China and overseas markets.

The blockchain-based issuance reduced settlement from five business days to three, while one tranche set a new maturity record for a Hong Kong dollar-denominated digital bond, according to the June report.

Tokenized equities are developing alongside the fixed-income market. Kraken parent Payward said on July 22 that it would take its xStocks platform into international markets by targeting Hong Kong equities first, working with financial infrastructure provider GTN.

GTN is set to provide execution, custody, ledgering and record-keeping infrastructure across more than 90 international markets, while Payward will continue operating the tokenization layer. The companies said expansion beyond Hong Kong into markets including the UK, Europe and South Korea would depend on local licenses and regulatory approvals.

Bitfire plans three-part RWA infrastructure

Within its own model, Bitfire said tokenization will act as the connection between crypto-native assets, tokenized U.S. stocks and alternative investments.

The company defines RWA tokenization as putting representations of traditional assets such as equities and bonds on blockchain networks so they can be traded, settled and programmed on-chain. Its latest strategy adds quantitative asset management to that structure, with market-neutral arbitrage intended to generate returns that can be converted into investment products.

Bitfire said the model will operate inside a compliant framework and combine custody with professional trading, market-making and quantitative management. The company plans to provide the resulting services to institutional and professional investors through its RWA asset management, RWA trading and market-making, and RWA custody businesses.

Weng said the expansion represents the company’s next stage after building its client base and asset management operations over the past year, with Bitfire positioning compliance, custody, trading and asset management as the main operating components of the new business.