Is China using US Bitcoin ETFs as a backdoor?

An obscure Hong Kong firm has disclosed a $436 million position in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, a revelation that is fueling speculation about Chinese capital flowing into crypto through offshore side doors.

Laurore Ltd, a previously unknown entity, reported the stake in BlackRock Inc.’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The disclosure serves as a rare, quantifiable signal that professional money managers in Asia’s financial hub are quietly building bridges to digital assets through regulated American investment vehicles.

The filing arrives at a complex juncture for the cryptocurrency market, with risk appetite cooling in the United States even as demand remains strong in jurisdictions where regulatory clarity is improving.

While the identity of the ultimate beneficial owners behind Laurore remains shielded, market observers suggest the structure bears the hallmarks of a sophisticated access vehicle designed to bypass capital controls or reputational risks.

How big is the IBIT stake, and why does it matter

Laurore’s position is large enough to stand out on its own and structured in a way that makes it hard to ignore.

In a Form 13F for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2025, Laurore reported owning 8,786,279 shares of IBIT, valued at about $436.2 million. The filing lists an address in Central, Hong Kong, and is signed by a director named Zhang Hui.

To put the holding in context, IBIT is one of the largest public-market gateways into BTC. As of Feb. 17, the fund reported net assets of about $51.5 billion and roughly 1.34 billion shares outstanding.

Laurore’s 8.79 million shares represent about 0.65% of the ETF’s total shares outstanding, a meaningful slice for a new filer, even though it remains below 1% of the overall product.

However, what made the disclosure stand out is not just its dollar value but also the filing’s opacity.

Jeff Park, chief investment officer of ProCap, noted that Laurore is a new entity with no website, no press coverage, and no digital footprint beyond the SEC filing.

Park described “Zhang Hui” as the Chinese equivalent of “John Smith,” calling it a “non-anonymous anonymous” name.

He also pointed to the “Ltd” suffix, which he said suggests a Cayman Islands or British Virgin Islands structure, the classic offshore wrapper for accessing US markets.

Meanwhile, he noted that the portfolio consisted solely of IBIT shares, with no other equities, technology stocks, or hedges.

This indicates an investment vehicle designed for a specific exposure rather than a broad US portfolio that happens to include a BTC allocation.

Moreover, Park tied that structure to a motive.

He said Chinese investors cannot legally hold Bitcoin directly and suggested that, if the filing reflects what he suspects, it could be an early sign of institutional Chinese capital moving into Bitcoin through a regulated US ETF rather than through exchanges or gray-market channels.

He described the setup as operating through what he called the most “transparent non-transparent” place imaginable.

That framing matters because spot BTC ETFs have become the most straightforward institutional wrapper for holding Bitcoin exposure.

For allocators that do not want to manage custody, exchange access, or internal crypto infrastructure, a large, liquid ETF can handle most of the operational burden.

Other Hong Kong firms have disclosed a similar path

Laurore is not an isolated case, as it appears to be part of a broader pattern in which Hong Kong-based managers use US ETFs to gain exposure to BTC.

Avenir Tech Ltd, another filer based in Hong Kong, previously reported owning 14,766,760 shares of IBIT, a stake valued at approximately $691.2 million in a 13F filing for the quarter ended March 31, 2025.

At the same time, Yong Rong Asset Management Ltd, another Hong Kong-based firm, also has a limited exposure to the Bitcoin fund.

These filings are notable given that the region also has its own Bitcoin funds.

However, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas previously explained that US ETFs have become irresistible due to their combination of low fees and high volume.

Essentially, this increases the likelihood that more quiet vehicles will emerge as the ETF market continues to mature.

Why does Hong Kong keep appearing, even with China’s stance unchanged

Hong Kong’s role is central to the story because it offers a regulatory posture distinct from Beijing’s, while remaining close enough to mainland capital and networks to serve as a bridge.

Mainland China’s official stance on crypto trading remains restrictive, and authorities have repeatedly signaled that speculative activity is unwelcome.

Yet Hong Kong has spent the past two years positioning itself as a compliant, institution-friendly gateway for digital assets, including through a licensing regime and a push to expand market infrastructure.

Last year, Hong Kong eased certain virtual-asset rules to promote trading and liquidity, including allowing locally licensed platforms to share global order books with overseas affiliates.

The same policy push included tokenization pilots designed to bring “real-value” use cases on-chain, an approach presented as financial modernization rather than speculative crypto trading.

Beijing, meanwhile, has been more hostile towards the growth of the emerging industry.

Earlier this month, Chinese financial regulators extended the existing crypto ban to target stablecoin issuances and the tokenization of real-world assets.

According to the authorities:

However, this effectively shows that China and Hong Kong’s differing regulatory tracks can coexist.

Hong Kong can pursue regulated market development, and the mainland can maintain restrictions on direct crypto trading and asset tokenization.

In that landscape, a Hong Kong entity holding a US-listed BTC ETF can appear to be a structure that shifts the most politically sensitive elements away from the mainland, even if the exposure remains economically similar.

Meanwhile, that does not mean the capital is mainland institutional money.

However, it does mean that the architecture exists for capital from the mainland to express exposure while reducing operational friction and, potentially, reputational risk.