From a banned economist to the CEO of New Fire: Fu Peng has figured out how to play the second half of traffic

Author: Zhou, ChainCatcher

On April 20, 2026, the Hong Kong-listed company Bitfire Group (1611.HK) announced that former chief economist of Northeast Securities, Fu Peng, has officially joined as the chief economist.

Upon the news, Bitfire's stock price surged over 22% during trading and closed up nearly 18% on the same day.

A few days later, Fu Peng also became a hot topic on X. His tweets sparked extensive debate among crypto-native users, and after he blocked several KOLs, community sentiment intensified, with people criticizing, supporting, and analyzing him, making the crypto circle lively for several days.

However, perhaps regardless of the voice, it is all part of the hype.

Because from the beginning, we were not his target customers.

Why did Bitfire invite someone from traditional finance to take the stage?

In April of this year, Bitfire Group first brought in Fu Peng as chief economist, followed by the announcement of the acquisition of Avenir Group's investment team of about 20 people and its trading system, incorporating its Alpha BTC options strategy into the compliant framework of Hong Kong's Type 9 license, launching Bitcoin asset management services.

Behind these intensive actions is a comprehensive transformation that is underway.

At the end of August last year, Li Lin promoted former Huobi executive Weng Xiaoqi to co-CEO and officially announced the company's full transformation, aiming to upgrade from an OTC trader to a private banking-level digital asset management platform.

The financial report numbers may illustrate how urgent this transformation is.

In the fiscal year 2025, Bitfire Group's total revenue was approximately HKD 8.661 billion, a staggering year-on-year increase of about 451%. Despite the revenue surge, the company still faced losses. Specifically, the company's revenue almost entirely came from facilitating large trades for clients and earning spreads, which is the OTC bulk trading business. In the fiscal year 2025, this business generated revenue of about HKD 8.257 billion, with sales costs reaching about HKD 8.256 billion, resulting in a gross profit of less than HKD 2 million.

In contrast, the company's asset management business generated revenue of about HKD 27.2 million in the fiscal year 2025, with assets under management growing from approximately USD 88.7 million at the beginning of the year to about USD 138.6 million by the end of the year, an increase of over 56% in just six months. Although the revenue scale is still small, it operates under a completely different trading logic from OTC, as its management fees and performance fees will continue to accumulate with the growth of AUM.

Image source: Bitfire financial report

This is also the logic behind Bitfire's integration of Avenir Group's investment team.

It is reported that Avenir Group's Alpha BTC strategy involves holding BTC spot while selling call options to collect premiums, targeting an annualized return of 5% to 7%, with historical drawdowns controlled around 1%.

From the product design itself, BTC is always held in the client's own account, and Bitfire only obtains API trading execution rights, without withdrawal rights—this separation of asset control and strategy execution is precisely the operational logic of standard asset management products under Hong Kong's Type 9 license compliance framework.

Bitfire CEO Livio Weng stated that with the addition of the new team, Bitfire has received about USD 500 million in initial investment intentions from family offices and listed companies.

However, there is often a gap between intended funds and actual funds in place.

The money Bitfire is targeting is not crypto-native users, but high-net-worth individuals, family offices, listed companies, and corporate funds considering diversified asset allocation. These individuals may not understand white papers or look at candlestick charts, but before making decisions, they must go through compliance reviews, risk control assessments, and investment committee approvals. If any of these checkpoints are blocked, it is difficult to proceed.

How to get traditional funds that have never been exposed to crypto products to step through this door is precisely the problem Fu Peng needs to solve.

The client base determines Fu Peng's positioning

Fu Peng's strategic value to Bitfire cannot be assessed solely by his title; it is also essential to consider who his audience is.

Former chief economist of Northeast Securities, with millions of followers in the traditional finance circle, active on Douyin, WeChat video accounts, and various offline closed-door forums—these are all labels of Fu Peng.

The circle he has long been immersed in is precisely the core decision-making level of executives from listed companies, private banking clients, and family offices.

This group is exactly the target customers that Bitfire needs the most and finds the hardest to reach.

To some extent, the real problem Fu Peng solves is the cognitive barrier. For traditional funds, the inability to understand and trust crypto products is a significant obstacle, and what Fu Peng excels at is precisely the macro packaging needed for this narrative.

The framework he has built over the years in the traditional finance circle—declining globalization dividends, structural challenges facing the traditional economic system, and the need for the old order to find new value anchors—naturally provides a foundation for companies to re-examine their cash reserve allocation methods.

Therefore, persuading traditional listed companies to convert the cash portion on their balance sheets into Bitcoin is not difficult for Fu Peng.

For Bitfire, having someone who speaks in familiar macroeconomic language stand up to endorse them will significantly reduce customer acquisition friction.

This logic is not new. Before launching the Bitcoin ETF, BlackRock's first step was also to organize analysts with traditional finance backgrounds to write research reports.

Many crypto KOLs mentioned that Fu Peng is a macro megaphone; by following his content, one can understand what is happening in the broader market, but trading based on his advice is another matter.

This also accurately describes Fu Peng's positioning in this ecosystem—his role is that of a narrative provider, and trade execution is not within his responsibilities. For Bitfire, which has just integrated a trading team, this is precisely the role they need.

In his debut after joining Bitfire, Fu Peng proposed the FICC+C framework at the Hong Kong Institutional Digital Wealth Management Summit, incorporating crypto assets into the traditional asset allocation system, with traditional finance background institutional investors sitting in the audience. This presentation did not introduce any specific products but laid out the cognitive foundation for "why to allocate Bitcoin."

The complete business logic chain thus takes shape: Fu Peng reaches target customers using traditional finance language, opening the door to trust; after customers enter, they experience OTC purchases, custody, and then enter the Alpha BTC strategy, with Bitfire collecting corresponding fees in the process. Fu Peng's value lies at the top of the funnel, while what Bitfire truly wants is to keep customers at the bottom of the funnel.

Why are crypto-native users so outraged?

On April 25, Fu Peng tweeted continuously on X, explaining the logic of BTC's funding rate and the framework for holding positions. The crypto community immediately raised doubts, and Fu Peng subsequently sent out a Chinese tweet (now deleted), stating, "Many people don't even know what I'm talking about, but the large-scale BTC spot holders who survived the early stages all know what I'm saying."

This tweet completely ignited community sentiment. The implication was clear—just because you don't understand doesn't mean I'm wrong.

In a community with a culture rooted in decentralization and questioning authority, such a mode of expression is bound to provoke backlash. As X user @Nicole_yang88 said, "I hope Fu Peng can appropriately drop the 'Old money' preaching vibe; the crypto circle has its own community culture, which is more open, decentralized, and emotionally resonant, fundamentally unsuitable for a one-way expert expression."

Subsequently, Fu Peng's account blocked several leading Chinese KOLs, and the situation further escalated.

Users bluntly stated that regardless of whether Fu Peng qualifies as a chief economist, the spread effect of this blocking incident makes him a chief traffic scientist.

Whether intentional or not, Bitfire completed a zero-cost full-circle exposure through this controversy. The crypto circle's rejection also indicates that this approach's target has never been them.

The outrage from the crypto community is, in fact, quite reasonable.

Crypto KOL Tu Ao Da Shi expressed that for OGs who have survived so many storms in this industry, who hasn't been mocked? A person with a traditional background suddenly entering the scene is a very normal reaction to be questioned. Rather than guarding against group criticism, it is better to prove oneself with real performance; results are the best proof.

Some hold an optimistic view. @Billions2022 believes that the entry of traditional capital elites like Fu Peng into the crypto industry means that old money's attitude towards BTC is shifting from observation to layout/allocation, and the main drivers of this structural bull market are institutions and wealthy individuals.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Fu Peng is a precise move in Bitfire Group's customer acquisition logic, but the game is far from over.

This uproar in the crypto circle appears to be a cultural clash between a traditional economist and crypto OGs, but looking deeper, it is merely the company leveraging Fu Peng's influence in the traditional finance circle to pry open a batch of funds that were originally hard to reach.

However, whether this business can run smoothly ultimately comes down to the real conversion rate, how much of the intended funds can actually be realized, and whether Bitfire's next financial report will show structural improvement in gross profit margins.

Regardless, Bitfire has already won the traffic.