Written after HashKey's IPO: Behind the glory, how should the "coin" and "stock" waters be balanced?

On December 17, 2025, the chimes of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange rang out, and HashKey Group, Hong Kong’s first licensed digital asset trading platform, completed its listing at this moment.

The Crypto Salad backend received many messages, hoping we could discuss what the Hong Kong listing of Web3 enterprises represents, and whether it signifies that Web3 companies in Hong Kong have a future as bright as Coinbase.

Before imagining the future, we want to point out a misconception: “listing” is not the end of success. Especially for Web3 companies, the significance of going public as a “watershed” is even greater. HashKey will face issues that are no longer just about explaining why it is compliant and recognized, but about many other practical problems.

For example, the stock price. Currently, both the economic environment and policy environment are not ideal. HashKey’s listing on this environment initially held steady without breaking the issue price, but soon dropped. The closing price was roughly the same as the issue price, or even slightly lower. Over the next few days, the stock price mostly fluctuated below the issue price, with occasional rebounds, but not sustained for long. Overall, our impression is that the market did not chase after the stock just because it was successfully listed; instead, it took a wait-and-see approach, observing how the company performs later before deciding whether to buy or whether the price is justified.

Compared to Coinbase, whether Coinbase’s stock is good or not largely depends on one thing: whether there are traders in the market. When the market heats up, trading volume increases, transaction fees rise, and revenue and profit immediately reflect in the financial statements, naturally driving the stock price. Therefore, the market tends to view Coinbase through a “cyclical stock” or “trading platform stock” lens.

But HashKey is no longer a company solely relying on trading fees. Due to various well-known reasons, it functions more like a comprehensive platform within a compliant framework: trading, custody, asset management, compliance services, institutional business—slow pace, long monetization paths. In the short term, it is unlikely to make a lot of money from a single market cycle. Therefore, HashKey cannot directly apply Coinbase’s valuation logic.

However, some issues are not dependent on how well a company operates but are determined by its very nature. For example, as a listed Web3 enterprise, HashKey not only has publicly traded shares but also owns its own ecosystem token (HSK).

Although HashKey states in its prospectus that HSK is merely a gas token used to pay for computation and transaction fees on HashKey, and its price fluctuations are legally and structurally separate from the listed company’s stock price, how can the “stock price” and “token price” market mechanisms achieve sustainable balance? After all, these are two different financial market narratives, two different regulatory logics, and even investor expectations vary greatly. Any company with a token ecosystem heading into the public market cannot avoid this issue.

Today, we want to raise this question and share our views.

In the context of traditional companies, stock price is a relatively clear comprehensive indicator: it compresses the company’s revenue capacity, 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 securities market’s basic requirements for information and responsibility are clear: listed companies need to disclose continuously, provide verifiable operational data, maintain relatively stable governance structures, and bear clear legal obligations to investors. Therefore, the requirements for listed companies are not that their business cannot fluctuate, but that information disclosure and risk boundaries must be sufficiently clear, enabling investors to make decisions within a comparable framework—i.e., with relative predictability.

Token price, on the other hand, is entirely different. Even without discussing whether tokens have security attributes, from a market pricing mechanism perspective, the token price is not strongly correlated with the “company” itself. The biggest influences on token price are external variables such as narrative, market expectations, liquidity structure, and most importantly—market sentiment.

Thus, stock price and token price are two entirely different pricing logics.

Now, with HashKey’s listing, these two are beginning to coexist. We can imagine some unavoidable contradictions: the securities market hopes companies make uncertainties transparent and controllable; the crypto market is accustomed to turning uncertainties into narratives and volatility itself. How to balance this becomes a difficult problem that must be solved.

For HashKey, the most challenging part is often not doing business, but maintaining “ongoing compliance.” HashKey has already met compliance requirements for “virtual asset trading platforms” across various jurisdictions through various sophisticated means (see Crypto Salad public account article “Why HashKey Can Become Hong Kong’s First Crypto Stock”). Now, as a listed company, HashKey must comply with regulations such as the Securities and Futures Ordinance and the Listing Rules.

Among these, disclosure of information is the core of listed company compliance. According to relevant regulations, listed companies must ensure fairness, timeliness, and accuracy in disclosing material information. But in the Web3 business scenario, because the crypto market operates 24/7 and information spreads extremely fast, the market has already adapted to this speed. Is the addition of a new ecosystem partner, deployment nodes on a certain chain, or updates to a technical protocol considered material information? Should it be disclosed? How should it be disclosed? Furthermore, if disclosure occurs before the company has completed trading halts or official announcements, could it face issues of insider information leaks or be deemed market misconduct? Related key issues include:

• First, is there a conflict of interest? Could the company sacrifice the interests of certain investors to maintain a market expectation? For example, when deciding profit distribution, should the company increase dividends to boost stock price or strengthen token buybacks to support the token price?
• Second, is there a risk of being misunderstood as market manipulation? Even if there is no subjective intent, could objective influence be formed? HashKey employees hold HSK tokens, and employees with access to material non-public information due to their roles—does this necessarily impact the market price of HSK?

This series of questions cannot simply be “blamed” on HashKey. After all, no Web3 enterprise designs governance mechanisms with “conflict prevention” as a starting point. As an industry pioneer, these subtle and complex issues are challenges HashKey must address.

So, how should HashKey achieve a “balance” between the token and stock?

Crypto Salad believes it’s not about pursuing the same rise and fall, but about enabling both prices to establish trust within their respective rules.

Many people, when discussing the balance between tokens and stocks, unconsciously fall into a simple intuition: the two are best if they promote each other and rise together, or at least do not drag each other down. But from a legal and governance perspective, a truly sustainable balance is not “correlated trends,” but “consistent rules”: stock prices should be understood within the disclosure and governance framework of the securities market, while token prices should be understood within the transparency and ecosystem expectations of the crypto market. Companies must ensure they do not repeatedly jump between these two frameworks. In other words, companies do not need to promise how the token price will move, nor how the stock price will move; what they need to promise is that they have stable institutional arrangements for information disclosure and behavioral boundaries, capable of resisting short-term emotions, liquidity shocks, and narrative volatility.

From this perspective, HashKey’s listing signifies more than just “entering the mainstream capital market.” It marks the beginning of a new corporate form that is forced to mature: it must retain the speed of Web3 innovation and ecosystem organization, while establishing an governance structure that is auditable, disclosable, and accountable within the framework of company law and securities law.

The industry’s real focus should not be on the performance of stock or token prices at a specific point in time, but on whether the enterprise can demonstrate that, even with two sets of market logic coexisting, it can still manage risks, allocate responsibilities, and maintain trust through consistent systems and boundaries. If it can do this, the tension between token and stock prices will not disappear, but will become a structure capable of long-term coexistence, rather than a ticking compliance bomb ready to explode at any moment.

Therefore, we want to say: to wear the crown, one must bear its weight. We thank HashKey for being the first to take the plunge, facing these pressures directly, and we look forward to HashKey providing answers, setting an example for more Web3 enterprises, and becoming a true industry leader.

Special statement: This article is an original work by the Crypto Salad team, representing only the personal views of the author, and does not constitute legal advice or legal opinion on any specific matter.