Hong Kong listed BC Technology Group announced it has a $91 million funding offer in exchange for a 30% stake in the company. BC owns OSL, the first regulated crypto exchange in Hong Kong and one of only two licensed exchanges. It is also Standard Chartered’s joint venture partner in Zodia Markets. The investor is BGX Group Holdings, the owner of the BitGet crypto exchange.
Yesterday BitGet announced its withdrawal from Hong Kong, including its license application, presumably in preparation for this transaction. While it will own 30% of the equity, BGX will effectively control the company as it has the right to nominate the majority of the board of directors.
Chinese National Liu Shuai is the sole owner of Cayman based BGX and has a background as a fund manager. Mr. Liu founded Foresight Ventures, which acquired crypto publication The Block (according to Coindesk) this week .
BC Technology said it will use roughly 43% of the proceeds for digital asset related acquisitions.
Hong Kong started relaxing crypto access to retail investors in June and appears committed to web3 based on this month’s Hong Kong Fintech Week. Hence, OSL wants to exploit the opportunity and also expand into the security token space.