When Chinese crypto billionaires start buying gold

Author: Lin Wanwan, BlockBeats

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

This building, costing around 100 million Singapore dollars, is known as "Asia's Fort Knox." With no windows, it maintains a constant temperature of 21°C and a humidity level of 55% year-round, perfectly suited for the optimal storage of artworks.

Behind the heavily guarded steel doors lies billions of dollars worth of gold, silver, and rare artworks: no customs declaration is required, and no taxes are paid.

Three years ago, one of Asia's youngest billionaire crypto tycoons, Wu Jihan, founder of Bitdeer, acquired this vault, rumored to cost as much as 100 million Singapore dollars, for 40 million Singapore dollars (approximately 210 million RMB). This deal was confirmed by Bloomberg at the time, with Wu Jihan's Bitdeer behind the purchase. At that moment, some mocked it as a "distraction" for a crypto giant, questioning why he would buy an off-chain vault instead of focusing on mining Bitcoin.

However, when gold skyrockets past 4,000 USD/ounce in 2025, looking back at this acquisition, it can be seen not as a diversion but as a brilliant early bet.

Nevertheless, Wu Jihan's acquisition of Le Freeport was not just about concrete and steel doors. This fortress was designed from the start as a bonded enclave tailored for super-rich individuals and institutions: high-level security, discreet exhibition spaces, and the ability to elegantly bypass numerous tariff barriers.

It reveals a fact: those Chinese billionaires who became rich overnight through Bitcoin have long turned their attention to humanity's oldest safe-haven asset: gold.

Gold's Retirement Home

In May 2010, Le Freeport 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 stance of the Singapore government is reflected in the ownership structure. The National Heritage Board and the National Arts Council of Singapore were among 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, benefiting from the Zero GST Warehouse Scheme, becoming one of the few vaults globally that combines tax exemption, bonded storage, and cross-border settlement functions.

Under such institutional arrangements, Le Freeport quickly entered 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.

For a Picasso masterpiece valued at 50 million, calculating a tax rate of 10% to 30%, storing it in Le Freeport means saving millions in tax burdens.

Since Le Freeport does not publicly disclose internal storage photos, we can only catch a glimpse of the interior from images released by another newly established vault, The Reserve. This place once gathered a top-tier group of institutional tenants, including one of the world's major gold traders, JPMorgan, a subsidiary of Christie's, CFASS, as well as international financial institutions like UBS and Deutsche Bank, facilitating the cross-border transfer and custody of large amounts of gold bars.

However, as some countries intensified regulations on luxury goods and offshore assets, these institutions began to vacate, and Le Freeport fell into long-term losses.

Since 2017, Le Freeport has been classified as a "problem asset" in the market, and the owners began attempting to sell it. It wasn't until five years later that a buyer finally emerged—Wu Jihan.

At that time, the crypto market was experiencing a true winter. The collapse of the LUNA algorithmic stablecoin raised doubts about the entire on-chain credit system; Three Arrows Capital went bankrupt, Celsius and BlockFi faced crises, and the deleveraging chain transmitted risks layer by layer, ultimately culminating in the collapse of the FTX empire, exposing counterparty risks across the board.

During this period, Chinese crypto entrepreneur Wu Jihan, through Bitdeer, purchased this previously considered "hot potato" vault for approximately 40 million Singapore dollars (about 210 million RMB).

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

Regarding this acquisition, he has not publicly elaborated much, only confirming it when asked by Bloomberg.

Now on Le Freeport's official website, it clearly states that it is not just a vault but a private experience for a select few.

Consider how people in the crypto world spend their lives figuring out how to secure private keys; the real big money has long been resting in Singapore's vaults, some represented by family trust documents, others inscribed on steel plates as mnemonic phrases.

Not only Chinese billionaires but also emerging wealthy individuals from India and Southeast Asia have quietly become regular visitors to Wu Jihan's Le Freeport.

Le Freeport has never disclosed its client list, but clues can be gleaned from information from international auction houses: many artworks are "directly stored" after transactions, no longer circulating back into the market.

A similar trend is occurring in Southeast Asia, where listed billionaires transfer portions of their cash directly into Le Freeport: gold bars, silver, high-end jewelry, limited edition Patek Philippe watches, vintage cars, and rare artworks are all sent from the trading floor into this secret warehouse.

Considering there may be "vault members" among the readers, I will clarify the gold storage process here.

At the entrance, armed security checks visitors' backgrounds using their passports to confirm they are not wanted criminals; to enter the core storage area, one must pass at least five checkpoints, including identity verification, biometric checks, bulletproof doors, and personal item security checks. The interior and exterior are equipped with hundreds of high-definition cameras, monitored 24/7 without blind spots. Adding the physical difficulty of "30 kg silver bars and 12.5 kg gold bricks," even if someone were to break in, they could hardly carry anything away. So while outsiders are still debating whether "gold can still rise," those inside are already discussing how many bottles of 15,000 USD Romanee-Conti to store first, and which layer and shelf to hang Picassos and Rembrandts to make the photos for their wives look better.

The endpoint for workers is their provident fund accounts, while for Asian billionaires, the endpoint is these windowless walls in Singapore.

Of course, the vault only occupies physical space; to gain greater influence over the gold industry chain, one must penetrate further upstream.

Fujian People Stirring the Bloodline of Gold

While Chinese aunties are still queuing at gold shops to snag discounts of 5 yuan per gram, old-money families and new blockchain elites are already arm-wrestling over tons: who calls the shots in this game.

In May of this year, a fintech company named Antalpha submitted a prospectus to Nasdaq. In the prospectus, it mentioned "Wu Jihan," who co-founded the mining company Bitmain.

The document clearly states: "We are the main financing partner of Bitmain." Both parties signed a memorandum of understanding, agreeing that Bitmain would continue to use Antalpha as its financing partner, with mutual client referrals. This company previously provided supply chain loans and customer financing for the world's largest mining machine manufacturer, Bitmain. That was the business legacy left by Wu Jihan.

Now, with Wu Jihan long gone from Bitmain, the reins have been taken over by another founder, crypto tycoon Zhan Ketuan from Fujian, China.

China has many places with a belief in gold, but those who truly tie their destinies to gold are undoubtedly led by the Fujian people: Chen Jinghe from Longyan turned Fujian's "chicken rib mine" into a world-class mining giant, Zijin Mining, a tenfold stock; Zhou Zongwen from Fuqing founded Zhou Dasheng in Shuibei, making it one of the top three nationwide through franchising; and people from Putian, once street-side goldsmiths, now account for nearly half of China's gold wholesale and retail.

Gold mines are in Fujian, gold shops are in Fujian, and a string of gold bosses makes one suspect that what runs in the veins of Fujian people is indeed golden blood.

Clearly, Zhan Ketuan's bloodline has been ignited, and how could the Fujian people miss out on the on-chain gold business? He has set his sights directly on Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, which is now also one of the top 30 gold buyers, a newly minted "on-chain gold master."

In October of this year, Tether announced a partnership with Antalpha to build a "Tokenized Gold Treasury," planning to raise 200 million USD, using the gold token XAU₮ as a base to create a "gold-backed digital credit system."

The division of labor is very Fujian-like: Tether is responsible for turning real gold into tokens and storing reserves in Swiss private vaults; Antalpha is responsible for transforming these tokens into tradable financial instruments, designing collateral structures, creating loan products, and establishing gold vault networks in Singapore, Dubai, and London, making "on-chain gold" a pledge certificate that can be redeemed for physical gold bars at any time.

In simple terms, it is a living "modern version of the gold standard": Tether acts as the mint, while Antalpha serves as the ticket office, with the story's backdrop shifting from Bretton Woods to Swiss vaults.

According to public reports, Tether has accumulated about 80 tons of gold in Swiss vaults, equivalent to the official reserves of some small to medium-sized countries. However, Tether claims that for "security reasons," the vault refuses to disclose its specific address. Unlike central banks that "lock gold bricks in a cellar for decades without seeing the light of day," XAU₮ is fragmented and placed on-chain, making it traceable, divisible, tradable, and pledgeable. Gold, which could only lie in a cellar, has been transformed into a complete set of dynamic liquidity that can be circulated, pledged, and wholesaled to institutions.

Antalpha has even let its own company Aurelion invest 134 million USD to directly purchase XAU₮, aiming to become "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 a publicly listed company's balance sheet."

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino succinctly articulated the underlying logic: "Gold and Bitcoin are two poles of the same logic; one is the oldest store of value, and the other is the most modern."

Gold prices are also enhancing the presence of this new highway: global gold investments have surged by over 50% this year, and the market capitalization of XAU₮ has doubled in the same period. Those who fear risk and those who love to gamble are now surprisingly walking the same path.

They are attempting to answer a larger question: can humanity's oldest method of wealth storage live again on the blockchain?

Not Following the Old Rules

In October 2025, gold prices surged past 4,000 USD/ounce like a faucet being turned on, reaching a historic high with an annual increase of over 50%, becoming one of the best-performing asset classes globally.

On the surface, this is another "gold bull market"; looking deeper, three forces are rearranging the power seats in gold.

In the front row are central banks. Over the past few years, global central banks have almost "bought the dip," treating gold as a base 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 still be exchanged for food, weapons, or allies?

In the second row are Asia's super-rich. Money from China, Hong Kong, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia is quietly piling up into a new wall of gold bricks through Singapore's vaults, Swiss cellars, and family office trusts.

They are no longer satisfied with buying a few kilograms of "paper gold" at banks; instead, they are directly buying a wall: some deposit money in Singapore banks, while others store gold bars directly in vaults, with the sense of security being completely different between the two types of fixed deposits.

Wu Jihan's purchase of Le Freeport is a node in this chain: shifting from mining Bitcoin to managing gold bars and masterpieces for others, transitioning from "on-chain returns" to "off-chain security."

In the third row are the new crypto elites. Zhan Ketuan, Antalpha, and Tether are playing a different game: while Wu Jihan bought the walls of the vault, they are buying the variables within the vault—XAU₮.

In this structure, Tether turns real gold into tokens and locks them in Swiss vaults; Antalpha turns tokens into assets, inserting them into the balance sheets of publicly 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"; for Asian billionaires, it has become a "family cold wallet" that can be passed down through generations; for crypto elites, it is a layer that can continuously accumulate structures, earning interest rate spreads and liquidity premiums.

For most people, gold is merely K-lines and weight; for these three groups, gold is a comprehensive ledger involving family, sovereignty, and national security.

Narratives shift from one to another, but what lies beneath is actually very old. After all, the path can twist and turn, stories can be fabricated, but capital is the most honest; when the curtain falls and the lights come on, what they truly seek is the sense of security that allows them to sleep soundly at night.