On Richard Branson's Necker Island, at an event called Fintech on the Seas, the conversation turned to where institutional crypto money is being built and regulated. LTP, a prime broker that
On Richard Branson's Necker Island, at an event called Fintech on the Seas, the conversation turned to where institutional crypto money is being built and regulated.
LTP, a prime broker that says it handled $1.2 trillion in trading volume last year, is planting a flag in the British Virgin Islands. Prime brokers sit between large trading firms and the market, supplying the financing, custody, and execution that hedge funds rely on. Ethan Wang is CEO of LTP Hong Kong, and he spoke with TheStreet Roundtable about his company's future in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).
His message is that institutional crypto is maturing into regulated, traditional-finance-style infrastructure, and that offshore centers like the BVI are racing to host it.
LTP started in digital assets and is broadening into everything else institutions trade.
"Our surface covers digital assets, equities, futures, commodities, FX, the multi-asset prime broker in the one platform," Wang said. "Our customers are the hedge funds, the large hedge funds. The top hedge funds are using our services right now."
The firm has been a significant player in crypto markets and hopes to make a similar impact in other asset classes.
"In terms of trading volume, we already are number one in APAC (Asia-Pacific). We processed $1.2 trillion dollars volume last year, and we account for about 3% of the total crypto trading volume," Wang said.
LTP holds two licenses in the BVI, a virtual asset license and a traditional securities license, putting both sides of its business under a single regulator. It was one of the first firms to register under the BVI's Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) framework, securing both a VASP and a Securities and Investment Business (SIB) license from the BVI Financial Services Commission.
Wang frames the BVI as a long-term center for financial services in part because it moved early on regulation. The VASP Act passed in 2022 and took effect in February 2023, at a time when many governments still dismissed crypto as a scam.
"BVI has long stood as a traditional financial center for a long time ... they are also very innovative and very open-minded to the digital asset space, and they moved quickly," Wang said.
He also said client gravity is pulling LTP to do more business in the country.
"We have a lot of clients here in BVI. That's why we want to be here, to build the connections with the regulators, with the ecosystem, with the service providers," Wang said.
The BVI is no longer just a tax-neutral shell-company haven. It has become a real tokenization hub. A June 2026 report found the territory now accounts for more than 10% of the global market for tokenized US Treasuries, roughly $1.5 billion in distributed value, alongside about $1.2 billion in stablecoins issued through BVI structures. In other words, about one in every ten dollars of tokenized US Treasuries now runs through the islands.
The pattern is bigger than one firm. Regulated heavyweights are stacking BVI licenses, including Kraken parent Payward, which secured its own virtual asset license there.
The crypto market retail investors trade now runs on regulated, institutional infrastructure, and the offshore hubs competing to host it show where regulated money is willing to go.
