Market capitalization triples in a year: Unveiling OSL's billion-dollar alchemy, what is the company planning?

OSL Group (00863.HK), as a market pioneer and leading company, is laying out a complete business ecosystem with a "real combat" approach, and has quietly entered the "next-generation battlefield." The company's stock price has tripled in the past year.

Written by: Jack

The stablecoin giant Circle has gone public on Nasdaq across the ocean, attracting frenzied interest from global investors, with its stock price soaring nearly tenfold within two weeks of listing. Although capital sentiment has cooled somewhat since then, its popularity undoubtedly reflects the market's optimism about the future of stablecoins and the recognition of the development logic behind them.

In the nearby Hong Kong stock market, there is actually a "real" stablecoin concept stock that has recently risen with the market trend. Unlike some companies that purely speculate on digital asset concepts or simply dabble in "cryptocurrency trading," OSL Group (00863.HK), as a pioneer and leading company in the market, is genuinely laying out a complete business ecosystem and has quietly entered the "next generation battlefield." The company's stock price has tripled in the past year.

As of the close of the Hong Kong stock market on June 30, 2025, OSL's stock price closed at HKD 15.38 per share, up 9.7% for the day, with a market capitalization approaching HKD 10 billion, reaching HKD 9.633 billion. In the six months from 2025 to now, OSL's stock price has risen by 92.25%; over the past year, the company's stock price has surged nearly 2.8 times; if calculated based on the 52-week lowest closing price of HKD 4.6 on October 8, 2024, the company's stock price has increased by 334% in nearly 8 months.

What has OSL done behind the rise in stock prices? Setting aside the heated market sentiment, how will this pure Hong Kong digital asset company position and structure its future business logic after seven years of growth?

The Regulatory Leader's Web3 Evolution

OSL is the only publicly listed and compliant licensed cryptocurrency trading platform in Hong Kong, with a relatively complete virtual financial infrastructure, providing services for global institutional and individual investors. In the cryptocurrency industry, which is rife with inconsistencies and chaos, OSL has firmly adhered to a compliance path since the very beginning. In May 2018, the company officially launched its digital asset business, and in December of the same year, it proactively accepted an independent audit from PwC, one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, and the following year launched Asia's first digital asset custody service with insurance protection.

In 2020, OSL became the first digital asset exchange to obtain a license from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and also became the world's first digital asset trading platform with SFC licensing, listed status, insurance protection, and audited by one of the "Big Four" accounting firms. The company subsequently followed a compliant path, first becoming the first digital asset broker licensed by the SFC to sell security tokens to professional investors, and later upgrading its SFC license, expanding from serving only institutional and professional investors to allowing retail investors to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum on its platform.

It can be said that compliance is the lifeblood of OSL, providing the foundation for its development in a turbulent market and uncertain regulatory environment. At the end of 2023, the company carried out a capital increase and share placement, securing a strategic investment of 700 million from cryptocurrency service company BGX, marking an important turning point in its new journey.

First is the management reshuffle of the company. OSL has successively appointed Kevin Cui, formerly from the global digital asset trading platform Bybit, as CEO; Ivan Wong, from Morgan Stanley's fintech division and with a background at Ant Financial, as CFO; Jack Tan, from the internet brokerage Futu Holdings, as Chief Marketing Officer; Eugene Cheung from Bybit as Chief Business Officer; and Yun Cheng from Binance, the world's largest digital asset trading platform, as Chief Technology Officer.

Through this series of appointments, it is not difficult to see that the talents recruited by OSL are rich in experience in the cryptocurrency and internet finance industries, injecting more Web3 (decentralized internet ecosystem) genes into this digital asset exchange. OSL also launched a brand new, more international brand identity and visual image at the beginning of 2025. OSL stated that this move marks a strategic upgrade in its rapidly developing digital asset industry and is the "beginning of a new stage of development" for the company.

PayFi's Breakthrough in Payments

On March 24, 2025, OSL announced its full-year results for the fiscal year 2024. The company achieved its first profit after seven years in the digital asset space, with revenue increasing significantly by 78.6% year-on-year to HKD 375 million. The ongoing business turned a profit, reversing a loss of HKD 250 million to a profit of HKD 54.8 million, and the net loss of HKD 266 million from the previous year was turned into a net profit of HKD 46.69 million. Achieving profitability is undoubtedly a significant and encouraging milestone for a publicly listed company deeply engaged in the digital asset industry. The company stated that the profit was benefited from the rise in digital asset market prices, the appreciation of digital assets held by the exchange business, and improvements in operational efficiency.

It is noteworthy that OSL has provided its own answer regarding the strategic direction for the future: a deep layout of PayFi (blockchain-based payment finance) services. The company announced in 2024 that it would allocate $30 million to invest in related digital asset and stablecoin payment products and services. This is also one of the important logics for investors in the capital market to pursue so-called "stablecoin concept stocks" like Circle and OSL. Stablecoins themselves are not the "golden egg-laying goose"; what is more strategically significant is the PayFi technology that provides underlying support behind them, along with the entire ecosystem related to it. According to research by the CGV Research team, by 2030, PayFi is expected to account for 10% of global digital payment transaction volume, with a market size potentially reaching $1.8 trillion.

OSL stated in its annual report that PayFi is a key component of the company's digital asset ecosystem, and its integration with licensed digital asset platforms is crucial for the industry's development. This provides a robust infrastructure, ensures regulatory compliance, and facilitates seamless settlement between digital assets and fiat currencies. Choosing to break through in this track also proves that OSL, which adheres to compliance principles, has not made cryptocurrency speculation its main battleground. Instead, it focuses on the Web3 PayFi payment as its main battlefield, highlighting its compliance and licensing advantages while avoiding strong competitors in the international exchange industry such as Binance, OK, and Bybit.

Global Layout Seizing First-Mover Advantage

What drives the increase in OSL's market value is not just a slogan. Over the past year, alongside the rise in OSL's stock price, the company has been actively pursuing mergers and acquisitions and obtaining licenses globally. In just one year, the company has completed four acquisitions, including acquiring a package of European digital assets and blockchain platforms, expanding its business from the Asian market to Europe; acquiring the Indonesian virtual asset trading platform Evergreen Crest Holdings, positioning itself in the rapidly growing Southeast Asian emerging market in the Web3 sector; acquiring the Japanese crypto asset trading platform CoinBest and renaming it OSL Japan; and the latest acquisition of the top fiat solution service provider Banxa.

This series of acquisitions has not only helped OSL achieve global expansion of its business but, more importantly, it has quickly obtained nearly 50 digital asset and payment licenses and permits worldwide, including in Europe, Indonesia, Japan, and beyond. Coupled with the relevant licenses independently applied for by the company in Hong Kong, Australia, and Dubai, OSL has firmly established a foothold in multiple emerging markets for virtual assets through a fast and broad layout, seizing a first-mover advantage in market competition by establishing compliant operations.

In the latest annual report, OSL expects that the global regulatory compliance framework will gradually improve, creating a more favorable development environment in the coming years. The company will establish a robust global network by collaborating with innovative technology companies in the global market, local banks, and securities firms, ensuring compliance operations and consolidating its market leadership. At the same time, the company will closely cooperate with strategic partners in key industries such as issuing institutions, lending platforms, and digital wallet service providers, believing that this will drive sustainable and compliant growth in the upcoming fiscal year.

The development trajectory of OSL also reflects the development trends of the digital asset industry from the side. Against the backdrop of favorable regulations and the influx of various competitors, OSL resolutely transformed, from establishing the first compliant digital asset exchange in Hong Kong in its early years to breaking new ground again today, creating Asia's first comprehensive compliant PayFi ecological platform, with the company continuing to play the role of an industry leader.

To forge iron, one must be strong oneself. Compared to numerous competitors involved in trading services, OSL's competitive advantage lies in its underlying infrastructure development. The stablecoin market in Hong Kong has entered a new stage of development, and the new path chosen by OSL is not something that can be achieved overnight. Fortunately, from regulation to the market and the team, the company already has the right timing, location, and people. Next, it will depend on how well it can leverage its first-mover advantage, accelerate its layout, and truly integrate its global business to create a digital asset ecosystem platform unique to OSL.