Colin Wu: Huobi co-founder to sell his stake in the company

What’s new? Journalist Colin Wu reported that Li Lin, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi, plans to exit the company and intends to sell a controlling stake, he owns more than 50%. The second-largest shareholder of the exchange is the Chinese arm of the US venture capital fund Sequoia Capital. Wu noted that the platform’s revenue plummeted after users from China were blocked and part of employees were laid off.

EXCLUSIVE: Huobi founder Li Lin is looking to sell his stake in Huobi. Li Lin currently holds more than 50% of the shares. The second largest shareholder of Huobi is Sequoia China. Huobi’s revenue plummeted after it wiped out all Chinese users and is laying off staff. https://t.co/67KOlW9aT9— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 1, 2022

How did events develop? Huobi is one of the largest digital asset trading platforms and until recently was in the top three in terms of trading volume and number of users. According to Wu, in 2021, Huobi was the second most profitable exchange with a figure of more than $1 billion.

However, the company faced serious problems in September 2021 when it had to block users from China due to restrictions imposed by the Chinese government, which caused significant damage to revenue. The market correction also had a negative impact. In June 2022, Huobi, like a number of other crypto exchanges — Coinbase, Bybit, and Gemini — reported its intention to reduce staff by 30%. The company attributed this to the need to cut costs in preparation for the crypto winter.

What is known about Huobi? It is a digital asset trading platform founded in 2013 in Beijing. Currently, it is based in Seychelles, it also has offices in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and the US. The exchange has its own token called Huobi Token (HT), which is used to receive fee discounts, as well as additional rewards and bonuses. The daily trading volume of the platform as of July 2 is $1,1 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

On June 17, Huobi co-founder Du Jun, together with a Chinese investor in Web 3.0 startups known as BMAN Li, launched the $400 million ABCDE Capital fund to support crypto projects.