- Huobi denies rumors of exchange executives being arrested.
- Cointelegraph contacted the exchange concerning insolvency between audit reports and On-chain data.
- Huobi is facing trouble in its other jurisdictions.
Soon after it was announced that executives from Huobi were arrested in China, the exchange’s stablecoin balance saw a dip of 33% in the last week, with traders of their token withdrawing $49 million worth of stables.
However, a spokesperson for the exchange denies the reports of the arrests. The information was first published by Colin Wu of Wu Blockchain, who posted that “a large number of senior executives of offshore cryptocurrency exchanges have been detained and investigated by the Chinese authorities.” There were no specifics added to the report.
DeFiLlama data has shown a notable dip in Huobi’s balance which is currently at approximately $2.5 billion, a significant decline from its balance of $3.1 billion at the start of the year. Data from On-chain also shows that some of Huobi’s most important holdings are tokens with connections to the Justin Sun universe of companies and protocols.
Huobi is reported to have $1 billion in highly liquid assets, with the inclusion of $886.92 million in bitcoin, at least $48.27 million in USDT, and $5.41 million in USDC, according to data obtained from DeFi Llama.
Reports from Cointelegraph have shown that at least one C-level executive at Huobi has exited over the past weeks. It is unclear if their exit is connected to the exchange rumors. However, a spokesperson for Huobi has come out to term the rumors as false, even going as far as to state that the exchange is “doing well.”
Data from Nansen confirmed a slight increase in the exchange’s net worth from over the weekend, currently standing at nearly $3.2 billion. Tron and Bitcoin heavily dominated Huobi’s reserves, with both tokens over 23% of the exchange’s reserves.
DeFiLlama’s data also shows suggestions of Huobi’s wallets holding $72 million in USDT and USDC combined as of August 6th, and it is, however, a different case from on-chain data from Nansen, which had no reflection of unusual outflows.
Huobi initially hesitated to respond to Cointelegraph’s request to clarify the differences between their audit report and findings from on-chain data.
Conclusion
The exchange is also facing troubles in its locations, the most recent being an enforcement action by Malaysian securities regulators forcefully closing down its operations back in May.
Huobi Global in Malaysia was ordered to shut down operations by the country’s securities regulator after failing to register as a cryptocurrency exchange operator. Huobi Global was also ordered to disable its website and mobile applications on Apple Store and Google Play.
The exchange was also asked to cease any promotional activities to Malaysian users via social media pending their shutdown. It hasn’t been a year since Huobi Global went through a rebrand after About Capital Buyout Fund acquired it in October 2022.
