Can a good card make Guotai Junan International rise by 2 times? There is a bigger reason

Written by: Deng Tong & AIMan, Golden Finance

Has the "coin stock" trend reached state-owned securities firms?

On June 25, 2025, Guotai Junan International, a Chinese securities firm listed on the Hong Kong stock market, said that it had obtained a license upgrade from the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission and could provide virtual asset trading services to customers. After the news was released, the stock price of Guotai Junan International rose from 1.4 Hong Kong dollars to 3.7 Hong Kong dollars at the opening, an increase of nearly 2 times in one day.

You should know that Guotai Junan International is a brokerage firm that only provides an encryption service channel. This is far less closely related to cryptocurrency than "coin stocks".

Why can a license upgrade allow its stock price to reach the exaggerated increase of "coin stocks"?Some people in the market even think that the national team is going to enter the encryption industry? This article analyzes one or two.

1. What happened?

On June 25, 2025, Guotai Junan International officially announced that it has been officially approved to provide virtual asset trading services such as cryptocurrencies. Customers will be able to directly trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum and stablecoins such as USDT on its platform.

The key points of the announcement are as follows:

On June 24, Guotai Junan International Holdings Co., Ltd. ("Guotai Junan International" or "the Company", stock code: 1788.HK), a subsidiary of Guotai Haitong Group, was officially approved by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (hereinafter referred to as "Hong Kong SFC") to upgrade its existing securities trading license to provide virtual asset trading services and provide opinions on the basis of providing virtual asset trading services. After the license upgrade, customers will be able to directly trade virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.), stablecoins (such as Tether, etc.) on the Guotai Junan International platform. So far, Guotai Junan International has become the first Chinese securities firm in Hong Kong that can provide a full range of virtual asset-related trading services, including providing virtual asset trading services, providing opinions during virtual asset trading services, and issuing and distributing virtual asset-related products including over-the-counter derivatives.

Affected by this good news, Guotai Junan International's share price soared all the way, closing up 198.39% on the day, soaring from an opening price of HK$1.420 to a high of HK$3.700, a nearly 10-year high.

Guotai Junan International is a broker and does not provide matching services. After the news further fermented on the afternoon of the 25th, the market discovered that the Hong Kong compliant exchange Hashkey Exchange provided matching services. The token HSK issued by Hashkey Group immediately rose by 70%.

As mentioned above, Guotai Junan International is just a broker and only provides a channel for virtual currency services. Why is the market reaction so huge?

The bottom line is that Guotai Junan International's background is fascinating, providing the market with huge room for imagination.

2. Who is Guotai Junan International? Its background is fascinating

Guotai Junan International is the first Chinese securities company to be listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through an initial public offering. Guotai Junan International was established in Hong Kong in 1993 and became the first company approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission to be listed in Hong Kong in 2010. Its core businesses include (i) brokerage; (ii) corporate finance; (iii) loans and financing; (iv) asset management; (v) financial products; and (vi) wealth management. It is a constituent stock of the Hang Seng Composite Index, Hang Seng Composite Small Cap Index, FTSE Hong Kong Index and FTSE Hong Kong ex H-share Index.

According to public information, Guotai Junan International's absolute majority shareholder is China's largest securities firm Guotai Haitong Group, which accounts for as much as 74%.

And Guotai Haitong Group is the result of the merger and reorganization of Guotai Junan Securities and Haitong Securities, the leading domestic state-owned securities firms. The controlling shareholder is Shanghai International Group Co., Ltd., and the actual controller is the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. The Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission has made it clear that it will promote Cathay Pacific Haitong to become the "main force in building a strong financial nation"and plans to obtain 10 billion yuan of state-owned capital injection to support innovative businesses in the next five years.

Cathay Haitong is one of the six financial services companies under the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission

Source: Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission official website

The merged Cathay Haitong Company is strong.On March 4, 2025, Haitong Securities' A-shares were delisted, and Guotai Junan, as the surviving company, disclosed the 2024 annual financial statement review report of the simulated merger. The report shows that the company will achieve operating income of 58.646 billion yuan and net profit attributable to the parent company's owners of 9.030 billion yuan in 2024. By the end of 2024, the total assets of the simulated merger company will be 1.73 trillion yuan and the net assets attributable to the parent company will be 328.3 billion yuan, both of which rank first in the industry in terms of capital strength.

Guotai Junan International has been approved to enter the crypto asset industry. Combined with its shareholder background, plus a series of combined punches recently launched by mainland China and Hong Kong (Mainland China's reflection on stablecoins, Hong Kong's accelerated promotion of stablecoins, etc.), it is inevitable to arouse people's imagination. This is also the reason why some people think that "the national team has entered the crypto industry".

It is no wonder that Guotai Junan International's stock price can reach a 2-fold increase in one day.

3. Guotai Junan International has an early layout of encryption

Guotai Junan International "holds a good hand" actually has traces to follow.

In May 2025, Guotai Junan International issued a document stating that according to the "Circular on Intermediaries Engaged in Tokenized Securities-Related Activities" issued by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, the relevant business plans for the tokenized securities distribution business and the digital bond issuance business have been submitted respectively, and both have been confirmed by the regulator that there are no further problems. It pointed out that Guotai Junan International submitted a wealth management-related business plan to the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission on January 21, 2025, intending to distribute tokenized securities to customers or provide advice on tokenized securities on the basis of existing securities transactions. The types of tokenized securities covered by the plan include: structured products linked to multiple underlying assets (such as structured notes, over-the-counter derivatives), SFC-approved funds and non-approved funds, and bonds. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission sent a confirmation email on May 7, 2025, with no further questions about the plan. Tokenized securities refer to traditional financial instruments (such as stocks, bonds, funds, etc.) that use distributed ledger technology (DLT, such as blockchain) to achieve the management of the entire life cycle of securities in digital form. The nature is basically traditional securities packaged in tokenization, and the form innovation is achieved by technical means.

Last August, Guotai Junan International Holdings Limited released an unaudited interim results announcement for the six months ending June 30, 2024, which disclosed that Guotai Junan Group was the first to launch structured notes linked to virtual asset spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the Hong Kong market, adding new elements to diversified product services and actively responding to the new capital investor entry scheme (CIES) launched by the Hong Kong government. Guotai Junan said that the Hong Kong government has actively introduced policies and measures to promote local economic development and attract investment. The market expects that the IPO market is expected to gradually regain momentum. At the same time, local supervision is expected to accelerate the implementation of regulatory measures on virtual assets, which is conducive to the launch of diversified products.

Source: Guotai Junan International Public Account