HashKey Plans Hong Kong IPO as Institutional Activity Grows Amid High Cash Burn
HashKey, one of Asia’s largest regulated crypto exchanges, is seeking to raise up to HK$1.67 billion ($215 million) in a Hong Kong IPO, according to its prospectus. The filing highlights rapid institutional growth, expanding staking and tokenization pipelines, and a user base exceeding 1.44 million accounts.
The company also disclosed significant losses, reporting cumulative losses of over HK$3.0 billion ($386 million) between 2022 and mid-2025 as it invested in essential custody, compliance, and on-chain infrastructure. In the first half of 2025 alone, HashKey lost HK$506.7 million and burned an average of HK$40.9 million per month in Q3.
HashKey emphasizes the leverage of its regulated structure: major costs such as licensing, custody, and risk infrastructure scale more slowly than revenues from trading, staking, and management fees, providing a path to margin improvement as adoption grows. Registered users surged from fewer than 200 in 2022 to 1.44 million.
The filing notes a shift in its user base. Retail trading fell in early 2025, while institutional flows remained strong. HashKey Global, its Bermuda-registered retail platform, was scaled back due to limited fiat on- and off-ramps, with focus shifting to the onshore platform tied to licensed fiat channels, ETF flows, and traditional financial institutions.
With cash, digital assets, and expected IPO proceeds, the company projects over 70 months of liquidity under conservative assumptions.
HashKey competes directly with Bullish, parent company of CoinDesk.
