When Chinese encryption tycoons start buying gold

Written by: Lin Wanwan

Twelve minutes by car north of Changi Airport in Singapore, a vault known as Le Freeport stands at the end of the runway, recognized as one of the highest security private vaults in the world.

This building, costing around 100 million Singapore dollars, is known as the “Knox Fort of Asia.” It has no windows, yet maintains a constant temperature of 21°C and a humidity level of 55% throughout the year, perfectly matching the optimal storage environment for artworks.

Behind the heavily guarded steel door lies hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold, silver, and rare artworks: no customs declaration is needed for entry, nor a single penny in taxes.

Three years ago, one of Asia's youngest billionaire crypto tycoons, Wu Jihan, the founder of Bitmain, acquired this vault, rumored to cost as much as 100 million Singapore dollars, for the bargain price of 40 million Singapore dollars (approximately 210 million yuan).

This deal was confirmed by Bloomberg at the time, and behind the buyer was Bit Deer, operated by Wu Jihan. At that time, few people mocked it, asking why a giant in the crypto world would engage in such “distraction” instead of focusing on mining Bitcoin on-chain. Why run off to buy an off-chain vault?

But when gold skyrockets past 4000 dollars per ounce in 2025, looking back at this acquisition, it is more accurate to say that this is not a diversion, but rather a brilliant move made in advance.

However, Wu Jihan's acquisition of Le Freeport is not just about concrete and steel doors. This fortress was designed from the outset as a bonded enclave for super-rich individuals and institutions: high-level security, discreet exhibition spaces, and it elegantly sidesteps one tariff barrier after another.

It exposes a fact that those Chinese tycoons who became rich overnight through Bitcoin have already turned their attention to the oldest safe-haven asset in human history: gold.

Golden Retirement Home

In May 2010, Le Freeport was officially opened in Singapore. This building was designed from the outset as infrastructure, located right next to the airport, with internal passages that can almost directly reach the runway, allowing valuable items to be transported from the cabin to the vault in just a few minutes.

The supportive attitude of the Singaporean government is reflected in the equity structure. The National Heritage Board and the National Arts Council of Singapore were the initial shareholders of Le Freeport.

At that time, Singapore was upgrading from a “trading port” to an “asset port”, and Le Freeport was included in the global art and wealth management center plan, taking advantage of the Zero GST Warehouse Scheme, becoming one of the few vaults in the world that combines duty-free, bonded, and cross-border settlement functions.

Under such a system arrangement, Le Freeport quickly came into the sights of global billionaires and institutions. Here, not only can large physical assets be stored; it is also open to non-Singaporean holders, without the need for immigration procedures or customs duties.

If a Picasso masterpiece worth 50 million is placed in Le Freeport, calculating the tax rate at 10%-30% means saving tens of millions in tax liabilities.

Since Le Freeport has not publicly shared internal storage photos, we can only catch a glimpse of the interior from the publicly shared images of the newly established vault next door, The Reserve.

Here, a top tier group of institutional tenants once gathered, including global major gold traders such as JPMorgan, CFASS, a subsidiary of Christie's, as well as international financial institutions like UBS and Deutsche Bank, with a large number of gold bars completing cross-border transfer and custody through it.

However, some countries have strengthened regulations on luxury goods and offshore assets, leading these institutions to gradually terminate their leases, and Le Freeport has also fallen into long-term losses.

Since 2017, Le Freeport has been categorized as a “problematic asset” in the market, and the owner began to attempt to sell it, until five years later, when a buyer finally emerged—Wu Jihan.

At that time, the crypto market was undergoing a real winter. The collapse of the LUNA algorithmic stablecoin triggered doubts about the entire credit system on the chain; Three Arrows Capital went bankrupt, Celsius and BlockFi followed suit with their own crises, and the deleveraging chain transmitted through layers, ultimately ending with the collapse of the FTX empire, exposing counterparty risks across the board.

During this period, Chinese crypto entrepreneur Wu Jihan, through Bitdeer, purchased this vault, which was previously regarded as a “hot potato,” for about 40 million Singapore dollars (approximately 210 million RMB).

Wu Jihan co-founded the world's largest mining machine manufacturer Bitmain, which once controlled about 75% of the global Bitcoin hash rate, making him one of the key figures in the last mining cycle. After the spin-off of Bitdeer, he exited the control of Bitmain as a permanent resident of Singapore and shifted his focus to the computing power and infrastructure business of Bitdeer.

He has not publicly provided much explanation regarding this acquisition, only confirming it when asked by Bloomberg.

Today, the official website of Le Freeport clearly states that it is not just a vault, but a private experience exclusive to a select few.

Think about how people in the crypto world spend their entire lives researching how to secure their private keys; the real money has long been resting in vaults in Singapore, some of it in the form of family trust documents and some engraved on steel plates as mnemonic phrases.

Not only Chinese tycoons, but also the emerging wealthy groups from India and Southeast Asia are quietly becoming regulars at Wu Jihan's Le Freeport.

Le Freeport has never disclosed its client list, but clues can be gleaned from information on international auction houses: many artworks are “directly stored” after the transaction, rather than returning to market circulation.

Similar paths have occurred in Southeast Asia, where billionaires who go public will transfer part of their cash directly into Le Freeport: gold bars, silver, haute couture jewelry, limited edition Patek Philippe watches, vintage cars, and rare artworks, all transported from the trading floor into this secret warehouse.

Considering there may be reserve “vault members” among the readers, I will explain the gold storage process here.

There are armed security guards at the entrance, and visitors must first use their passports to check their background online to confirm they are not wanted high-risk individuals; to enter the core storage area, one must pass at least 5 checkpoints, including identity verification, biometric recognition, bulletproof doors, and carry-on item security checks, etc. There are hundreds of high-definition cameras installed inside and outside the storage area, monitoring 24/7 with no blind spots. Adding to the physical difficulty of “30 kilograms per silver bar, 12.5 kilograms per gold brick,” even if someone breaks in, they can hardly take anything.

So while people outside are still discussing whether “gold can still rise”, those inside are already discussing: how many bottles of Romanee-Conti priced at 150,000 each should be stored first, and on which shelf, on which row to hang the Picassos and Rembrandts, so that the ladies can take better-looking numbered photos.

The endpoint for workers is the provident fund account, while the endpoint for Asian tycoons is the windowless walls of Singapore.

Of course, the vault only occupies the advantage of physical space. To gain greater influence in the gold industry chain, one needs to penetrate further upstream.

The people of Fujian have stirred the veins of gold.

Chinese aunties are still queuing at the gold store to grab discounts of 5 yuan per gram, while old money families and on-chain newcomers are already arm wrestling by the ton: who calls the shots on this thing.

In May of this year, a fintech company named Antalpha submitted its prospectus to NASDAQ. In the prospectus, Antalpha mentioned the mining company Bitmain, which was co-founded by “Wu Jihan.”

The document clearly states: “We are the main financing partner of Bitmain.” Both parties signed a memorandum of understanding, agreeing that Bitmain will continue to use Antalpha as its financing partner, and both sides will recommend clients to each other.

This company once provided supply chain loans and customer financing for Bitmain, the world's largest mining machine manufacturer. That was the business legacy left by Wu Jihan's era.

Now, when Wu Jihan has long left Bitmain, in his place is another founder, the crypto tycoon from Fujian, China, Zhan Ketuan.

Many places in China have faith in gold, but those who truly tie their personal destiny to gold are definitely at the forefront, especially the people of Fujian: Chen Jinghe from Longyan has turned Fujian's “chicken rib mine” into a world-class mining giant, Zijin Mining, with a tenfold stock increase; Zhou Zongwen from Fuqing founded Zhou Dasheng in Shuibei, making it one of the top three nationwide through franchise chains; and people from Putian, who started as street goldsmiths, now control nearly half of China's gold wholesale and retail.

The gold mines are in Fujian, the gold shops are in Fujian, and the gold bosses come one after another, which inevitably makes people suspect that the Fujian people have gold blood flowing in their veins.

It is evident that the bloodline of Zhang Ketuan has been ignited; how could the people of Fujian miss out on the business of on-chain gold?

He aimed the scope directly at Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, which is now also one of the top 30 gold buyers globally, a newly emerged “on-chain financier.”

In October this year, Tether announced a partnership with Antalpha to build a “Tokenized Gold Treasury,” aiming to raise $200 million, with the gold token XAU₮ as the foundation, to create a “gold-backed digital credit system.”

The division of labor is also very characteristic of Fujian, with Tether responsible for compressing real gold into tokens and stuffing the reserves into Swiss private vaults; Antalpha is responsible for transforming this token into a circulating financial instrument, designing collateral structures, creating loan products, and establishing a network of gold vaults in Singapore, Dubai, and London, making “on-chain gold” a pledge certificate that can be redeemed for physical gold bars at any time.

Simply put, it is a living “modern gold standard”: Tether as the mint, Antalpha as the ticket issuer, with the story background shifted from Bretton Woods to Swiss vaults.

According to public reports, Tether has hoarded about 80 tons of gold in a vault in Switzerland, equivalent to the official reserves of some small to medium-sized countries. However, Tether claims that for “security reasons,” the vault refuses to disclose the specific address.

Unlike the central bank's approach of “locking gold bricks in a vault and not seeing the sunlight for decades,” XAU₮ is fragmented and put on-chain, making it traceable, divisible, tradable, and collateralizable. Gold, which could only lie in the vault, has been transformed into a complete set of “dynamic liquidity” that can be circulated, pledged, and wholesaled to institutions.

Antalpha simply allows its own company Aurelion to put up $134 million to directly purchase XAU₮, preparing to make itself the “first publicly listed treasury company with on-chain gold as reserve assets.” This is equivalent to rewriting the old money tradition of “stuffing gold bars into Swiss vaults” into: “stuffing a line of XAU₮ into the balance sheet of a publicly listed company.”

A statement from Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino highlights the framework of logic: “Gold and Bitcoin are two poles of the same logic, one being the oldest store of value and the other the most modern.”

Gold prices are also making their presence felt on this new expressway: global gold investment has increased by over 50% this year, and the market value of XAU₮ has doubled in the same period. Those who fear risks and those who love to gamble are rare to be on the same path this time.

They are trying to answer a bigger proposition: can the oldest way of storing wealth in human history live again on the blockchain?

Not following the old rules.

In October 2025, the gold price broke through $4000 per ounce like a faucet being turned off, setting a historical record with an increase of over 50% for the year, becoming one of the best-performing asset classes globally.

On the surface, this is yet another round of a “golden bull market”; looking deeper, there are three forces reshuffling the power seats in gold.

The first row is the central banks. In recent years, global central banks have almost been “buying the dip”, treating gold as a foundation for de-dollarization and hedging against sanctions. They do not care about short-term fluctuations; they only care about one question: in the worst-case scenario, can this thing still be exchanged for food, weapons, or allies?

The second row is the super-rich of Asia. The money from China, Hong Kong, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia is quietly piling up into a new brick wall through Singapore's vaults, Switzerland's cellars, and family office trusts.

They are no longer satisfied with buying a few kilograms of “paper gold” from the bank, but rather buy a whole wall directly: some deposit money in Singapore banks, while others store gold bars directly in vaults; the sense of security from these two types of deposits is completely different.

Wu Jihan bought Le Freeport, which is a node on this chain: from mining Bitcoin to managing gold bars and famous paintings for others, shifting from “on-chain revenue” to “off-chain security.”

The third row is the new cryptocurrency elite. What Zhang Ketu, Antalpha, and Tether are playing is a different game: Wu Jihan bought the wall of the vault, while they bought the line of variables inside the vault - XAU₮.

In this structure, Tether mints tokens backed by real gold and locks them in a Swiss vault; Antalpha converts the tokens into assets and places them into the balance sheets of listed companies and the collateral baskets of institutional clients.

Thus, the role of gold has been quietly rewritten: for central banks, it remains the “ultimate collateral” kept in reserve; for Asian billionaires, it has become a “family cold wallet” that can be passed down through generations; for the new crypto elite, it represents a financial system that can layer structures continuously, earning interest rate spreads and liquidity premiums.

For most people, gold is just K lines and weight; for these three groups of people, gold is a comprehensive bill involving family, sovereignty, and national security.

Narratives change one after another, but what lies in the bottom warehouse is actually old and deadly. After all, no matter how the road winds or how the story is fabricated, only capital is the most honest. Once the play is over and the lights are on, what they want is a sense of security that allows them to sleep well at night.