coindesk.com
When a shell company called Laurore Ltd. filed a position of about $436 million in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) exchange-traded fund — its first and only filing — listing a Hong Kong address and phone number, the crypto community took notice, and a social media frenzy began.
What made it even more interesting is that it listed "Zhang Hui" as a director in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, a name as common in China as "John Smith" in the West, according to a X post by ProCap's CIO, Jeff Park.
Indeed, CoinDesk found over 100 Zhang Huis listed as directors of different companies in the Hong Kong Company Registry.
This sparked a week of speculation about potential Chinese capital entering the crypto market via purchases of spot bitcoin $BTC$64,502.52 exchange-traded funds.
"Smells like capital flight to me," Park said in his post. Even Bloomberg's ETF analysts weighed in, with James Seyffart replying to the post, "I spent almost an hour trying to figure this out earlier this morning, I got absolutely nowhere."
The mystery became even more intriguing when CoinDesk visited the Hong Kong address listed in Laurore’s SEC filing.
The building directory showed that the suite was occupied by Avecamour Advice Ltd and not Laurore. Furthermore, Laurore, which holds the IBIT shares, is not incorporated in Hong Kong.
After CoinDesk's attempts to find someone at Laurore to comment, the company has finally broken its silence. A spokesperson said the company's owner prefers to keep a low profile, without revealing further details.
But there are still more questions than answers.
Who is Avecamour, and what is the connection between the two companies? And how does the mysterious "Zhang Hui" fit into all of this?
'Private businesses'
CoinDesk searched through the corporate filings, which showed that Avecamour Advice is wholly owned by Avecamour Ltd., a British Virgin Islands entity.
Hong Kong Company Registry records show that Zhang Hui, with a matching mainland China passport prefix, is also the only director listed for Avecamour Advice, which was incorporated in March 2025. No other public details about Avecamour or its stakeholders could be found.
Laurore's spokesperson told CoinDesk that "the owner of Laurore is also a director of Avecamour," implying that Zhang Hui is the owner of the mysterious firm.
However, the spokesperson didn't provide any more details about Zhang Hui or either of the companies.
"Our principal prefers to keep a low profile, and this position [in IBIT] is simply a reflection of their personal investment conviction," the spokesperson said.
In fact, 13F filings identify reporting managers, but do not require disclosure of ultimate beneficial owners. Large investors often hold positions through multiple legal vehicles for structuring, custody, or privacy reasons.
"Since these are private businesses, we don’t disclose further ownership details," the spokesperson said.
What does this all mean?
If it is "capital flight," in this context, it would mean funds moving out of mainland China into offshore assets via Hong Kong, such as U.S.-listed bitcoin ETFs, potentially to diversify wealth beyond the reach of domestic capital controls.
However, it could also simply mean that Laurore is just part of a cluster of funds or family offices, under the umbrella of a larger Hong Kong-based entity that invests in bitcoin ETFs. If so, it would imply that, due to low liquidity and high fees of HKEX-listed bitcoin ETFs, a Hong Kong-based fund chose to allocate to the U.S.-listed IBIT, which offers much greater liquidity and lower costs for institutional investors to park their capital.
But for now, the identity of Laurore and its mysterious principal remains as clear as bitcoin's Satoshi Nakamoto.
Read more: U.S. $BTC ETF Inflows Dwarf Hong Kong's as Local Investors Stick With Stocks