When Chinese crypto tycoons start snapping up gold, you should have woken up long ago: the market has already changed.

From Singapore vaults to on-chain gold tokens, Chinese crypto tycoons are quietly moving into humanity’s oldest safe-haven asset. Wu Jihan bought a top-tier vault, Zhan Ketuan teamed up with Tether to build an on-chain gold treasury—this wealth game is rewriting the rules.

(Previous: Observation: Gold and tech stocks are being bought up, only Bitcoin is left behind) (Background: China officially comments on stablecoins for the first time, ending the gray era of StableCoin fantasies)

Twelve minutes’ drive north of Singapore Changi Airport stands one of the world’s most secure private vaults, right at the end of the runway—Le Freeport. This building, costing about 100 million SGD, is known as the “Fort Knox of Asia.” There isn’t a single window, but it maintains a constant temperature of 21°C and 55% humidity all year round, creating the perfect environment for storing art.

Behind the heavily guarded steel doors lie hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver, and rare artworks: no customs declaration is needed, and not a cent in tax is paid.

Three years ago, Wu Jihan, one of Asia’s youngest billionaire crypto entrepreneurs and founder of Bitdeer, snapped up this vault—rumored to have cost up to 100 million SGD—for just 40 million SGD (about 210 million RMB). Bloomberg confirmed the deal, with Wu Jihan’s Bitdeer behind the purchase. At the time, some mocked this as “straying off course” for a crypto giant—why not just mine Bitcoin on-chain instead of buying an off-chain vault?

But when gold soared past $4,000/oz in 2025, this acquisition was viewed less as an odd detour and more as a brilliant, well-timed move.

However, what Wu Jihan acquired with Le Freeport wasn’t just concrete and steel doors. This fortress was designed from the beginning as a bonded enclave for the super-rich and institutions: high-level security, discreet exhibition spaces, and elegantly sidestepping wave after wave of tariff barriers.

It reveals a fact: those Chinese tycoons who got rich overnight with Bitcoin have long set their sights on humanity’s oldest safe-haven asset—gold.

Gold’s Retirement Home

Le Freeport officially opened in Singapore in May 2010. Designed as infrastructure from the start, it’s located next to the airport, with internal corridors leading almost directly to the runway—valuable items can be moved from plane to vault within minutes.

Singapore’s supportive stance is written into the equity structure. Both the National Heritage Board and the National Arts Council were among Le Freeport’s earliest shareholders.

At the time, Singapore was upgrading from a “trading port” to an “asset port.” Le Freeport was included in the Global Art and Wealth Management Center Program and benefited from the Zero GST Warehouse Scheme, becoming one of the world’s few vaults offering tax-free, bonded, cross-border settlement functions.

Thanks to this system, Le Freeport quickly caught the eye of the world’s wealthy and institutions. Large physical assets could be stored here; it was open to non-Singaporean holders, requiring no entry paperwork and no tariffs.

For example, if a Picasso masterpiece worth $50 million is stored here, given a tax rate of 10%–30%, that could save tens of millions in taxes.

As Le Freeport has never released photos of its storage space, we can only get a glimpse from images published by The Reserve, another newly established neighboring vault.

Le Freeport once hosted top-tier institutional tenants: major global gold dealer J.P. Morgan, Christie’s subsidiary CFASS, as well as UBS, Deutsche Bank, and other international financial institutions. Large quantities of gold bars were transferred and custodied here.

But as some countries tightened regulations on luxury goods and offshore assets, these institutions began moving out, and Le Freeport fell into long-term losses.

From 2017, Le Freeport was labeled a “problem asset” on the market, with the owner trying to sell. It took five years before a buyer finally appeared—Wu Jihan.

At that time, the crypto market was in a real winter. The LUNA algorithmic stablecoin collapsed, triggering doubts about the entire on-chain credit system; Three Arrows Capital went bankrupt, Celsius and BlockFi blew up in succession, and the cascade of deleveraging ended with the collapse of the FTX empire, fully exposing counterparty risks.

During this period, China’s crypto entrepreneur Wu Jihan, through Bitdeer, bought the previously “hot potato” vault for about 40 million SGD (around 210 million RMB).

Wu Jihan co-founded Bitmain, the world’s largest mining equipment manufacturer, at one point controlling about 75% of global Bitcoin hash power—a key figure in the last mining cycle. After spinning off Bitdeer, he gave up control of Bitmain as a Singapore permanent resident and focused on Bitdeer’s computing power and infrastructure business.

He has said little publicly about the acquisition, only confirming it when questioned by Bloomberg.

Now, Le Freeport’s official website makes it clear this is not just a vault but an exclusive private experience for the few.

Think about it: people in crypto spend their lives figuring out how to store private keys, but real big money has long been lying in Singaporean vaults—sometimes as a stack of family trust documents, sometimes as a mnemonic phrase etched on a steel plate.

It’s not just Chinese tycoons; new wealth from India and Southeast Asia is quietly becoming regulars at Wu Jihan’s Le Freeport.

Le Freeport never publishes a client list, but clues emerge from auction houses: many artworks go “straight into storage” after being sold, never returning to the open market.

A similar pattern plays out in Southeast Asia. Listed billionaires transfer some of their cashed-out wealth directly into Le Freeport: gold and silver bars, high-end jewelry, limited-edition Patek Philippe watches, vintage cars, and rare artworks—delivered straight from the auction floor to this secretive warehouse.

For any readers who might be “prospective vault members,” here’s how the gold storage process works:

Armed security guards stand at the entrance. Visitors must have their background checked via passport, ensuring they’re not wanted criminals. To enter the core vault area, at least five checkpoints must be passed, including identity verification, biometrics, bulletproof doors, and security scans of all belongings. Hundreds of HD cameras provide 24/7 surveillance with no blind spots. Add to that the physical challenge—“a 30kg silver bar, a 12.5kg gold brick”—and even if someone broke in, it’s nearly impossible to carry much away.

So while outsiders are still debating “if gold can keep rising,” insiders are already discussing: how many bottles of $150,000 Romanee-Conti to store, which shelf and row to hang the Picassos and Rembrandts for their wives to take the best catalog photos.

For regular workers, the end game is a pension account; for Asia’s rich, it’s these windowless walls in Singapore.

Of course, a vault is only a physical advantage—if you want greater influence over the gold industry chain, you have to penetrate further upstream.

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