Chinese brokerage Guotai Junan’s stock surges nearly 200% after Hong Kong crypto trading license approval

Guotai Junan International, a Hong Kong-listed Chinese brokerage firm, has seen its shares surge nearly 200% in the past two days after the company obtained the regulatory approval to offer cryptocurrency trading services in Hong Kong.

The securities firm announced on Wednesday that the Securities and Futures Commission has upgraded its existing Type 1 license (intended for securities dealing) to enable its clients to trade cryptocurrency on its platform, supported by an SFC-licensed crypto platform.

Following the news, Guotai Junan's stock surged 198% to close at HK$3.7 on Wednesday, according to Yahoo Finance data. The rally continued into Thursday, with shares climbing as high as HK$7.02 intraday before paring gains. The stock closed down 4.32% at HK$3.54 today but remained well above Tuesday's closing price of HK$1.24 — marking a 185% gain over two days.

Guotai Junan is a major brokerage that became the first Chinese securities firm to list in Hong Kong through an initial public offering in 2010, according to its website. The company is known for its Chinese state backing, with Shanghai's state-owned enterprise vehicle acting as the controlling shareholder of its parent company, Guotai Haitong Group, according to data from enterprise portal Qichacha.

Meanwhile, several other Chinese brokerages, including China Merchants Securities and Huatai International, are also seeking upgrades to their licenses to enable crypto trading, according to a Thursday report from the state-owned Securities Times.

Hong Kong has embraced crypto with a licensing regime in place for crypto exchanges, while China continues to ban crypto trading and mining on the mainland. On Thursday, the Hong Kong government released a new policy statement, outlining plans to support real-world asset tokenization and expand its crypto licensing framework.