Leon Li, the founder of Huobi Global one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges intends to sell his entire stake to About Capital Management. He announced the decision on Saturday in a personal WeChat post.
Li said he is no longer a shareholder of Huobi Global and does not have any authority, directly or indirectly over the company. He highlighted that the Hong Kong-based asset management firm will bring new momentum to the globalization of Huobi Global. With this Huobi is set to embrace a series of new international brand promotion and business expansion initiatives, including the injection of capital. Huobi said the deal will not affect their core operation and business management, teams.
The founder had been looking to sell his stake since August 2021. Colin Wu, an influential blogger, said Huobi’s revenue plummeted after it wiped out all Chinese users. Moreover, Huobi has been under pressure because of the cryptocurrency sell-off. For the six months ending March 2022, Huobi Technology, Huobi Global’s listed entity in Hong Kong, sustained a loss of USD 6.2 million. It was down from a profit of HK$54.1 million a year ago, but revenue grew HK$351.8 million.
Huobi was established in 2013 in Beijing by Oracle veteran Li. The crypto exchange emerged as a major global player but continuously struggled with the Chinese government’s crackdown on the sector. Huobi moved its servers and staff outside mainland China, after the government banned Bitcoin exchanges in 2017. It also stopped letting users register new accounts with mainland China mobile phone numbers and suspended derivatives trading in the country altogether.
