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On October 8th, prominent crypto exchange Huobi Global announced its major shareholder selling the entire shareholdings to About Digital Management. Founder of Seychelles based crypto firm Leon Li had the controlling shares of the company. About Digital is a Hong Kong based company who’s buyout arm is said to control the stakes of Huobi Global.
According to the agreement, Huobi Global noted, it is only meant to change major stakeholders and nothing more than that. Neither there will be any change in its core internal operations nor in its management teams. However, there was no information disclosed about the size of the deal in monetary terms.
Huobi Global is one among the major crypto exchanges with operations around all over the world. According to Messari, the exchange is the seventh largest crypto exchange with a daily trade volume of over 151.5 million USD.
Justin Sun Said to be the Hidden Buyer
Soon after the announcement, there was talk all over the space about another purchase of TRON founder and Bittorrent CEO, Justin Sun. As reported, Sun is said to be the core investor in fund management firm About Capital. This way it is implied that the TRON founder is the main buyer of Huobi’s controlling shares. Although he has not publicly accepted this by now.
However, Sun becomes one of the global advisors at Huobi along with the About Digital founder Ted Chen and Valkyrie Investment CEO Leah Wald. Sun went on to Twitter and expressed her thoughts on being appointed as global advisor board member at the crypto exchange.
Founder of About Digital also known for his creation of Greenwoods Asset Management, which is a well known hedge fund giant in China.
Sun has an image of a controversial crypto entrepreneur and known for not disclosing his actions. Earlier in 2019, he was also reported to acquire Poloniex crypto exchange from Circle—issuer of USDC stablecoin. Initially he also denied the purchase which was confirmed gradually.
Sell-off was the Remaining Option
Huobi Global was going through a tough phase due to several factors following one of the crucial ones being its leaving China. It happened with the crackdown of crypto in the country in September 2021. Exiting China resulted in a significant decline in revenue of crypto firms. This led the company to lay off upto one third of its employees.
The crypto exchange looked out for expansion to other markets in different countries but did not get enough success. Along with the expansion, it also looked to sell the majority of its stakes and consistently remained in contact with investors.
In August, it was reported that Huobi was looking to sell about 60% shares which were said to be valued over 2 billion USD. Reports mentioned founder of Bahamian crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried and TRON founder Justin Sun. Although, SBF denied the rumors but Sun’s will remained suspicious.
Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast, with a major in macroeconomics and minor in business statistics. She believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks, and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning. She frequently researches, and posts content on the top altcoins, their theoretical working principles and technical price predictions.
