HashKey Leads Hong Kong’s Crypto Market as Losses Deepen Ahead of IPO

HashKey has emerged as Hong Kong’s largest licensed crypto exchange, but its IPO filing reveals a company paying heavily for that position.

According to filings published Monday with Hong Kong's exchange, HashKey processed HK$638.4 billion (about $82 billion) in trading volume in 2024, around double the previous year as its Hong Kong platform scaled up with both institutional and retail users.

The company’s fee take still hovered under 0.1 percent, reflecting a pricing strategy that prioritized market share over revenue. While HashKey commands around 75% of the Hong Kong market, its race-to-the-bottom fee approach contributed to a net loss of more than $151 million (HK$1.18 billion) in 2024. It will likely be a focal point for investors assessing the company’s IPO.

HashKey’s Bermuda exchange, launched as a global-facing venue offering a wider set of assets, saw trading volumes collapse from roughly $23 billion in the first half of 2024 to about $1.4 billion a year later. The filing attributes the decline to a lack of on-off ramp capability until late 2025 and a strategic pullback in marketing.

HashKey has been pushing into tokenization, staking, and Web3 events to diversify its business, but the IPO filing shows these lines are still far from meaningful.

Tokenization revenue reached only about $0.9 million (HK$7.0 million) in 2024, then slipped to about $140,000 (HK$1.1 million) in the first half of 2025.

Web3 events – largely from its conference in Hong Kong in the spring – brought in about $4.8 million (HK$37.1 million) in 2024 and about $3.0 million (HK$23.7 million) in the first half of 2025, making them one of HashKey’s larger non-trading revenue lines even as they remained small compared with its core exchange business.

The filing presents a diversified exchange with significant market traction, but the business model is still working to find a sustainable footing.

HashKey’s dominance in Hong Kong’s licensed market underscores the reach of its platform, but its thin fees, modest new business lines, and shrinking offshore activity highlight the financial pressures around the listing. Whether that adds up to a viable path forward is now for investors to decide.

HashKey is a competitor to CoinDesk's parent company, Bullish.