On September 29, Huobi’s Senior Institional Sales Manager Dhruv Shah spoke at Token 2049 about the company’s current situation and next steps. His presentation covered topics including Huobi’s restructuring, global expansion, challenges, and its business plans for 2022.
Shah introduced Huobi’s history as an exchange, with its founding in 2013 and achieving $20 billion in trading volumes by April 2014. He also covered its foray into staking products in 2021, its pivot to the global market after exiting from China last year, and how it integrated its main custodian into the exchange this year, enabling the trading of 100% cold storage assets on the exchange.
Shah said that since leaving the China market towards the end of 2021, Huobi had managed to grow its presence in over 170 countries worldwide, serving millions of active users. Its restructuring entailed expansion in cities like Singapore and Dubai, and enabled Huobi to provide better support to clients around the world. New fiat channel partnerships such as with Astropay in Latin America and Settlepay in Ukraine further expanded Huobi’s capabilities.
On the regulatory front, Huobi now operates a regulated entity in the British Virgin Islands, and secured registrations in the U.S. and Canada this year. Huobi is liaising with the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority in Dubai to secure a license to offer services to clients there.
How did Huobi hold up in 2022?
Despite major shake ups with UST, Luna, and some of the top players in the DeFi world, Huobi has been able to weather the crypto winter well. Its risk management systems remained robust, with no uncollateralized loan risks and no loan losses. Huobi’s derivative insurance funds held up well, and the exchange’s 20,000 Bitcoin reserve remains intact and cold-stored under the custody of Huobi Trust.
Shah added that Huobi expanded its product range to include over 600 tokens for spot trading and over 200 trading pairs for futures and swaps. Over Huobi recorded US$4.4 trillion in trading volumes over the past year, driven by 4.5 million active retail users and more than 800 institutional clients.
The road forward for Huobi
Shah mentioned that in 2023, Huobi will continue to double down on its compliance efforts and create products that meet market needs. The exchange plans to introduce a V3 upgrade for its API, and also introduce portfolio margin functions for institutional investors.
All in all, Huobi is bullish on the cryptocurrency industry’s long-term prospects and confident that it can capture future opportunities.
