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Hong Kong's staking-enabled ETH ETF regime

Hong Kong is one of a small number of markets where a regulated spot Ethereum ETF can stake its underlying ETH and pass rewards through to shareholders, a design the US market only began matching in late 2025. Two of Hong Kong's four SFC-approved spot ETH issuers, Bosera International (with HashKey Capital) and ChinaAMC (with OSL Digital Securities), launched staking-enabled products in April and May 2025 respectively; the fourth-largest by the original 2024 cohort, Harvest Global, explicitly does not stake its fund's ETH. For an operator comparing regional ETP design, Hong Kong's regime separates the fund manager from the staking function by design: SFC-licensed virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs), not the fund managers themselves, run the validator infrastructure and reward distribution.

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SFC policy basis

The staking pathway traces to the SFC’s ASPIRe roadmap, published 19 February 2025, a five-pillar (Access, Safeguards, Products, Infrastructure, Relationships) policy statement setting out 12 initiatives to develop Hong Kong’s virtual-asset market (SFC). HashKey Capital received approval to offer staking services shortly after, in April 2025, the operational precondition for any fund manager to route staking through a licensed platform rather than run it in-house.

The two staking issuers

Bosera International and HashKey Capital. The Bosera HashKey Ether ETF launched around 25 April 2025 with a staking provision, HashKey Capital providing the staking service.

ChinaAMC and OSL Digital Securities. ChinaAMC’s staking-enabled Ether ETF launched by 15 May 2025, with OSL providing the staking service; OSL was the first insured, SFC-licensed digital asset platform in Hong Kong. OSL’s staking architecture uses Kiln, a third-party staking infrastructure provider that also services Solana, Aptos, and Sui validators, to run the validator nodes; OSL retains asset control and handles reward distribution. Staking rewards accrue into the fund’s net asset value rather than being distributed as a separate payment.

What is not confirmed

Public secondary reporting on both products has not surfaced a specific staking-cap percentage (what share of the fund’s ETH holdings can be staked at once), redemption mechanics for a holder redeeming during an active staking or unbonding period, or the SFC’s specific approval conditions beyond the general staking-service licence. These would need a direct check against each fund’s offering documents.

Harvest Global: the deliberate non-staker

Harvest Global’s spot Ether ETF (9179.HK), one of the original four SFC-approved spot ETH issuers from the 2024 cohort alongside Bosera, ChinaAMC, and HashKey, states explicitly in its fund documentation that the manager will not stake any portion of the ETH held by the sub-fund. Harvest’s non-staking design is itself a useful data point: the SFC’s regime makes staking an issuer choice within an approved framework, not a mandatory feature of holding a Hong Kong ETH ETF licence.