On December 17, 2025, the bell rang at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, marking the listing of HashKey Group, Hong Kong's first licensed digital asset trading platform.
Crypto Salad's backend received many messages, hoping we would discuss what the Hong Kong listing of a Web3 enterprise represents and whether it signifies a bright future for Web3 companies in Hong Kong, similar to Coinbase.
Before envisioning the future, we want to first point out a misconception: "listing" is not the ultimate sign of success. Especially for Web3 enterprises, the significance of an IPO as a "watershed" is even greater. The challenges HashKey will face are no longer just about explaining why it is compliant and why it is recognized, but more about other practical issues.
For example, the stock price. Currently, both the economic and policy environments are not favorable. HashKey listed in this environment. It initially managed to avoid breaking issue price on the first day but soon fell, with the closing price basically matching, or even slightly below, the issue price. In the following days, the stock price mostly fluctuated below the issue price, with occasional rebounds that didn't last long. Overall, it gave us the impression that the market did not chase highs just because of its successful listing; instead, it adopted a wait-and-see approach, waiting to see how the company actually performs before deciding whether to buy and what it's worth.
Compared to Coinbase, whether Coinbase's stock performs well largely depends on one thing: whether there are people trading in the market. When the market heats up, trading volume increases, commissions rise, and revenue and profits are immediately reflected in the financial statements, naturally driving the stock price. Therefore, the market is willing to view Coinbase with a mindset偏向 "cyclical stock" or "trading platform stock."
However, HashKey is not a company that relies solely on trading commissions. For reasons everyone knows, it更像是一个合规框架下的综合平台 (it更像是一个合规框架下的综合平台): trading, custody, asset management, compliance services, institutional business. Its pace is slower, its monetization path is longer, and it is unlikely to make a lot of money immediately due to any single market cycle. Therefore, HashKey cannot directly apply Coinbase's valuation logic.
But some issues are not determined by how well a company operates but by its inherent genes. For example, as a listed Web3 enterprise, HashKey not only has public shares but also its own ecosystem token (HSK).
Although HashKey stated in its prospectus that HSK is only a Gas token used to pay for computing and transaction fees on HashKey, and the rise and fall of the token price is legally and structurally separate from the listed company's stock price. But how can the two market pricing mechanisms of "stock price" and "coin price" achieve sustainable balance? After all, these are two narratives of financial markets, two regulatory logics, and even investor expectations are vastly different. Any enterprise taking its token ecosystem to the public market cannot avoid this issue.
Today, we want to raise this issue and share our views.
In the context of traditional companies, the stock price is a relatively clear comprehensive indicator: it compresses the company's revenue capability, cost structure, risk exposure, governance quality, and macro expectations into a tradable price. The key here is not whether the market is rational but that the basic requirements of the securities market for information and responsibility are确定的: listed companies need continuous disclosure, verifiable operational data, a relatively stable governance structure, and clear legal obligations to investors. Therefore, the requirement for listed companies is not that their business must have no fluctuations, but that information disclosure and risk boundaries must be clear enough, allowing investors to make decisions within a comparable framework, meaning it is relatively predictable.
The coin price is completely different. Even without discussing whether tokens possess security attributes, solely from the perspective of market pricing mechanisms, the correlation between the coin price and the "company" itself is not that high. What affects the coin price the most are external variable influences, such as narrative, market expectations, liquidity structure, and most importantly—market sentiment.
Therefore, stock price and coin price are two completely different pricing logics.
Now, HashKey's listing causes the two to coexist. We can imagine certain unavoidable contradictions: the securities market希望企业把不确定性变得透明、可控 (hopes companies make uncertainty transparent and controllable); the crypto market is accustomed to turning uncertainty into narrative and volatility itself. How to balance this becomes a难题 that must be solved.
For HashKey, the most difficult point is not doing business but achieving "sustained compliance." HashKey has, through various impressive means, met the compliance requirements of various jurisdictions regarding the dimension of "virtual asset trading platform" (for details, see the Crypto Salad WeChat article "Why Could HashKey Become the 'First Hong Kong Crypto Stock'?"). Now, as a listed company, HashKey must face the compliance requirements of regulations such as the Securities and Futures Ordinance and the Listing Rules.
Among these, information disclosure is the core of listed company compliance. According to relevant regulations, listed companies must ensure the fairness, timeliness, and accuracy of disclosure regarding material information. But in Web3 business scenarios, since the crypto market trades 24/7 and information spreads extremely fast, the market has already adapted to this speed. Does the addition of an生态合作伙伴 (ecosystem partner), the deployment of a node on a certain chain, or an update to a technical protocol constitute material information? Does it need to be disclosed? How should it be disclosed? Secondly, if disclosure occurs before the listed company has completed a trading halt or issued an announcement, could it face allegations of internal information leakage or be defined as market misconduct? Other key related questions include:
First,是否存在利益冲突 (Is there a conflict of interest)? Is it possible to sacrifice the interests of investors in one market to maintain expectations in another? For example, when deciding on profit distribution, should it increase shareholder dividends to boost the stock price or strengthen token buybacks to support the coin price?
Second,是否存在被误解为操纵市场的风险 (Is there a risk of being misunderstood as market manipulation)? Even if subjectively there is no such intention, objectively it could create improper influence. HashKey's own employees hold HSK. Could access to material non-public information due to their positions inevitably affect the market price of HSK?
This series of questions cannot really be "blamed" on HashKey. After all, no Web3 enterprise designs its governance mechanism with "conflict prevention" as the starting point. As an industry pioneer, these subtle and complex issues are ones that HashKey must resolve.
So how should HashKey achieve the "balance" between coin and stock?
Crypto Salad believes it is not about pursuing simultaneous rises and falls, but about allowing both prices to build trust within their respective rules.
When many people discuss the balance between coin and stock, they unconsciously fall into an intuition: it's best if the two promote each other,最好联动上涨 (best if they rise together联动), or at least not drag each other down. But from a legal and governance perspective, the truly sustainable balance is not "consistent trends" but "consistent rules":
The stock price should be understood within the disclosure and governance framework of the securities market; the coin price should be understood within the transparency and ecosystem expectation framework of the crypto market. The enterprise must ensure it does not repeatedly jump between these two frameworks. In other words, the enterprise does not need to promise how the coin price will perform, nor how the stock price will perform; it needs to promise that it has stable institutional arrangements for information disclosure and behavioral boundaries, capable of resisting short-term sentiment, liquidity shocks, and narrative fluctuations.
From this perspective, the significance of HashKey's listing for Web3 enterprises far exceeds "entering the mainstream capital market." It marks the forced maturation of a new corporate form: one that must retain the innovation speed and ecosystem organization methods of Web3 business while achieving an auditable, disclosable, and accountable governance structure within the framework of company law and securities law.
What the industry should truly observe is not the performance of the stock price or coin price at any single point in time, but whether the enterprise can prove that when two sets of market logic coexist, it can still manage risks, allocate responsibilities, and maintain trust with consistent systems and boundaries. If this can be achieved, the tension between the coin price and stock price will not disappear, but it will become a structure capable of long-term coexistence, rather than a compliance landmine waiting to explode at any moment.
Therefore, we want to say, heavy is the head that wears the crown. We thank HashKey for being the first to eat the crab,直面这些压力 (facing these pressures head-on). We also look forward to HashKey providing answers, setting an example for more Web3 enterprises, and becoming a true industry leader.
