When a shell company called Laurore Ltd. filed an approximately $436 million position in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) exchange-traded fund (its first and only filing) and listed a Hong Kong address and phone number, the cryptocurrency community took notice and went into a social media frenzy.
More interestingly, according to an
In fact, CoinDesk found that more than 100 Zhang Hui is listed as a director of different companies in the Hong Kong Companies Registry.
This sparked a week of speculation that Chinese capital may enter the cryptocurrency market by buying spot Bitcoin. Exchange Traded Funds.
“To me, this looks like capital flight,” Parker said in the post. Even Bloomberg’s ETF analyst weighed in, with James Seyffart replying to the post, “I spent nearly an hour this morning trying to figure this out to no avail.”
The mystery became even more intriguing when CoinDesk accessed the Hong Kong address listed in Laurore’s SEC filing.
The building directory shows the suite is occupied by Avecamour Advice Ltd, not Laurore. In addition, Laulore, which holds shares in IBIT, is not incorporated in Hong Kong.
After CoinDesk attempted to find someone at Laurore for comment, the company finally broke its silence. A spokesman said the company’s owners preferred to keep a low profile and did not disclose further details.
But there are still more questions than answers.
Who is Avecamour? What is the connection between the two companies? And how does the mysterious “Zhang Hui” fit into all this?
“private enterprise”
A CoinDesk search of company documents shows Avecamour Advice is wholly owned by Avecamour Ltd., a British Virgin Islands entity.
Hong Kong Companies Registry records show Zhang Hui, who holds a mainland Chinese passport prefix, is also the only director listed on Avecamour Advice, which was established in March 2025. No other public details about Avecamour or its stakeholders were found.
A spokesman for Laurore told CoinDesk that “Laurore’s boss is also a director of Avecamour,” implying that Zhang Hui is the boss of the mysterious company.
However, the spokesman did not provide further details about Zhang Hui or the two companies.
“Our principal likes to keep a low profile and this position [in IBIT] This is simply a reflection of their personal investment beliefs,” the spokesperson said.
In effect, the 13F filing identifies the reporting manager but does not require disclosure of the ultimate beneficial owner. Large investors often hold positions through a variety of legal vehicles for structural, custody or privacy reasons.
“As these are privately held companies, we will not disclose further ownership details,” the spokesman said.
What does this all mean?
In this case, if it is “capital flight”, it means the movement of funds from mainland China through Hong Kong to offshore assets, such as Bitcoin ETFs listed in the United States, which has the potential to diversify wealth beyond the scope of domestic capital controls.
However, it could also simply mean that Laurore is part of a cluster of funds or family offices owned by large Hong Kong entities investing in Bitcoin ETFs. If so, it would mean that due to the low liquidity and high fees of Bitcoin ETFs listed on the Hong Kong exchange, a Hong Kong fund chose to allocate to U.S.-listed IBIT, which provides institutional investors with greater liquidity and lower costs of parking funds.
But for now, Laurol’s identity and his mysterious leader remain as clear as Bitcoin’s Satoshi Nakamoto.
Read more: Local investors hold on to stocks as US BTC ETF inflows dwarf Hong Kong
