Dhruv Shah, Huobi’s Senior Industrial Sales Manager, spoke to Token 2049 on September 29th about the company’s current state and future plans. He spoke about topics such as Huobi’s restructuring and global expansion, its challenges, and its business plan for 2022.
Shah spoke about Huobi’s history, which began in 2013 and reached $20 billion in trading volume by April 2014. Shah also discussed Huobi’s foray into staking in 2021 and its pivot to global markets after it exited from China last year. He also explained how the exchange integrated its main custodian this year, which allowed the trading of 100% cold storage assets.
Shah stated that Huobi has been able to expand its reach in more than 170 countries since it left China at the end of 2021. This is in addition to serving millions of users. The restructuring resulted in an expansion in cities such as Singapore and Dubai and Huobi was able to offer better support to its clients all over the globe. Huobi’s capabilities were further enhanced by new fiat channel partnerships, such as those with Astropay Latin America and Settlepay Ukraine.
Huobi is now a registered entity in the British Virgin Islands and has secured registrations in Canada and the U.S. this year. Huobi is coordinating with the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (Dubai) to obtain a license to provide services to clients.
How did Huobi fare in 2022?
Despite major shake-ups with UST and Luna and other top DeFi players, Huobi has managed to weather the crypto winter very well. The exchange’s risk management systems were robust and there were no uncollateralized loan risks or loan losses. Huobi Trust’s derivative insurance funds performed well. The exchange’s 20,000 Bitcoin reserves are still intact and cold-stored in the custody of Huobi Trust.
Shah said that Huobi has expanded its product offering to include more than 600 tokens for spot trades and over 200 trading pairs in futures and swaps. Huobi’s trading volume of US$4.4 trillion was driven by more than 4.5 million retail users and 800 institutional clients.
Huobi: The way forward
Shah stated that Huobi will increase its compliance efforts in 2023 and continue to create products that are market-ready. The exchange will introduce V3 upgrades to its API and portfolio margin functions for institutional investors.
Overall, Huobi is positive about the long-term prospects of cryptocurrency and believes it can seize future opportunities.
