The Confidence to Navigate Cycles - An Insight into Osl Group's Global Expansion in the Digital Payment Arena

Standing at the crossroads of early 2026, the global Web3 industry is undergoing a profound paradigm shift. If the theme of the past decade was 'grassroots rise' and 'speculative volatility,' then the new cycle starting from 2025 has only one theme: real economic value connection through compliance pathways.

In this process, the trajectory of Osl Group (863.HK) stands out as particularly remarkable. Over the past year, this company, once labeled by the public as 'Hong Kong's first licensed exchange,' has undergone a courageous self-iteration and brand transformation. Beyond the cluttered market information flow, it becomes clear that Osl is playing a grand strategic game of 'connecting the traditional and digital worlds, creating real economic value for the physical economy.'

Strategic Restructuring: The Leap in Identity within the Global Payment Ecosystem

Observing Osl’s actions over the past year, the most profound impression is the comprehensive elevation of its strategic dimensions. For a long time, the market has viewed licensed exchanges as intermediaries providing trading matching services. However, as the Web3 industry begins to embrace compliance further today, the noisy fluctuations of cryptocurrency speculation and investment are destined to fail in supporting the backbone of the future digital economy. Osl Group keenly recognized this point and decisively initiated planning and layout early on. Finally, after five years of compliant operations in Hong Kong, in 2025, it completed a strategic upgrade from being a 'licensed compliant digital asset exchange in Hong Kong' to becoming 'Asia's leading stablecoin trading and payment platform.'

This upgrade is not merely a nominal change but a complete reconstruction of the brand's essence. Behind the brand upgrade lies Osl Group's redefinition of the essential attributes of digital assets—assets should not just remain stagnant or be subject to speculation, becoming detached from real economic value. Instead, they should generate value through circulation within the real economy. To this end, Osl Group has invested substantial strategic resources in an attempt to build a solution that bridges fiat and digital currencies, connecting traditional finance with the on-chain world. Through this strategic positioning, Osl Group has effectively moved beyond the single track of traditional exchanges into the broader field of global digital financial services, evolving its role from a 'participant' in the market to a co-definer of rules and a provider of infrastructure services.

This bold strategic move has won Osl Group the favor of top-tier capital. The $300 million equity financing completed in 2025 was a significant milestone in the macro environment at the time. This funding is not only ammunition for Osl's global expansion but also a weighty vote of confidence from international capital markets in Osl's new strategic blueprint. It sends a clear signal to the outside world: in the long race of Web3, compliant players with a global vision and payment infrastructure capabilities are the ones truly equipped to withstand cyclical challenges.

Global Framework: Building the Puzzle of Compliance

If strategic upgrading is the soul, then the global compliance network is the backbone of Osl Group. In the past year's business expansion, the successful acquisition of Banxa, a leading global Web3 payment solutions provider, has had significant strategic synergy. Through this integration, Osl Group has rapidly gained core market access capabilities covering the globe, representing a physical layer of connectivity. Banxa's mature compliance channels combined with Osl Group's licensed endorsements have formed a vast network covering major financial hubs in the Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Americas.

These global layout moves have been frequent and solid. We see Osl Group being awarded the Bermuda Digital Asset F-class full license, marking another strategic breakthrough in its global compliance map. Following this, Osl announced plans to provide compliant spot and futures trading services in Europe and intends to launch stablecoin payment services for wholesale clients in Australia. Each piece of this puzzle strengthens Osl Group’s 'certainty.' In today’s era of increasingly stringent regulation and complex geopolitical dynamics, this multi-point compliance framework itself represents a high competitive barrier, enabling Osl Group to offer seamless and secure compliance solutions to institutional clients worldwide.

Payment Core: Anchoring Value Connections in the Real Economy

In Osl Group's new strategic chapter, the payment business is undoubtedly the jewel in the crown. Unlike the simple money transfers traditionally perceived, Osl BizPay showcases Osl Group's profound understanding of how digital assets can empower the real economy.

The payment track based on compliant stablecoins is seen as the inevitable path for Web3 to achieve mass adoption. Osl BizPay addresses the pain points of high costs, low transparency, and delayed settlement in traditional cross-border payments. By deeply integrating stablecoin transactions with payment processes, Osl BizPay offers global enterprises a new solution for fund flow efficiency, positioning Osl Group to grow further into an international digital financial service cornerstone akin to Visa.

Meanwhile, Osl Group launched USDGO, a US dollar stablecoin regulated by federal authorities in 2025, which is expected to officially go live in the first quarter of 2026. This is considered a cornerstone in the construction of Osl's global payment infrastructure. Notably, Osl positions USDGO to provide e-commerce, gaming, and trade sector companies with a secure and reliable tool for cross-border payments and settlements. When investors use Osl's global trading and payment platform to allocate digital assets, it will also serve as a trusted medium channel. This product strategy, rooted in compliance, scenario-driven, solving pain points, and focusing on value, has the potential to become the vibrant digital blood flowing through the 'highway' built by Osl BizPay.

On the other hand, as another core business in the digital asset payment strategy, Osl Pay, which covers over 120 mainstream fiat-to-digital asset trading pairs and processes more than 40,000 orders daily, contributed nearly 30% of the group's revenue within three months of its launch in the first half of 2025. According to the latest disclosure, Osl Pay continues to contribute significantly to the company's income.

Moreover, OSL Group has continuously expanded its payment ecosystem over the past year, including collaborating with Morph to build a blockchain-based payment network and integrating into the Avalanche network to promote the payment ecosystem. These efforts are essentially about broadening the practical application scenarios for digital assets. This 'real driving virtual' logic gives OSL Group's business growth strong intrinsic momentum and strategic anticipation.

Institutional Deep Dive: Compliance Practices in the Tokenization Era

In addition to the strong emergence in the payment sector, OSL Group’s accumulation in institutional business and RWA (Real World Asset Tokenization) also constitutes a bright spot in its thriving business over the past year. As the sole virtual asset custodian and licensed trading partner for Asia's first Solana ETF, OSL Group once again demonstrated its dominance in top-tier compliance infrastructure. The reason large financial institutions choose OSL Group is precisely because of its professional expertise in digital asset security, insurance coverage, and multiple compliance frameworks.

On the tokenization track, known as a 'multi-trillion-dollar' opportunity, OSL Group has chosen to advance steadily, fully evaluating and meeting market demands. From collaborating with China AMC (Hong Kong) to launch the first retail tokenized money market product in the Asia-Pacific region, to forming a strategic partnership with Ant Digital Technology to build an ecosystem, and further cooperating with Taikang Asset Management (Hong Kong) on tokenized funds, OSL Group is taking the lead in bringing traditional debt and funds into the blockchain era. This not only enhances asset liquidity but also allows OSL Group to occupy key distribution and custody nodes in this process.

Continuous Investment: Competing for a Certain Future in Value Depressions

Strategic layouts and investments inevitably may also bring 'growing pains' during expansion periods. OSL Group is undergoing a capital expenditure phase of 'heavily investing in the future.' The team size expanded from 167 people in 2024 to over 600 people in 2025. Behind the increase in labor costs are the establishment of global offices, the expansion of top-tier compliance teams, and continuous investment in product and technology R&D.

According to the company’s recent disclosures, increased investments in manpower, technology, mergers and acquisitions, and compliance are expected to continue generating losses. Additionally, price volatility in the digital asset market over the past year will also lead to certain 'non-cash item' losses for the company. However, on an adjusted core business operational level, OSL Group actually maintains a robust and significant growth pace.

This is akin to early-stage e-commerce giants or cloud computing companies where investments on the balance sheet aim to secure insurmountable competitive barriers before infrastructure fully releases economies of scale. For a fintech leader that has secured international investor funding and is seizing opportunities globally, short-term fluctuations in financial statements are merely footnotes in completing its strategic pivot.

The future Web3 arena will undoubtedly belong to those with 'staying power.' All of OSL Group’s layouts over the past year—strategic upgrades, building a global footprint, launching the payment engine, and deep cooperation with top-tier institutions—form a clear logic: it is striving to become the stable, secure, and efficient gateway and bridge between digital assets and the global financial system.

While the market is still fixated on short-term fluctuations in the digital asset space, OSL Group has already begun constructing its framework from 1 to N. As OSL BizPay and USDGO gain traction in global payment scenarios, along with the full rollout of tokenized products, these 'early investments' will inevitably translate into highly valuable moats. The current OSL Group demonstrates a rare 'certainty': it remains at the competitive table, taking steady steps forward, paving a compliant path for digital asset platform development with patience.

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