How the sale of Huobi exchange could become one of the biggest deals in cryptocurrency history

Huobi Group founder Leon Li is debating with a group of investors a possible sale of his majority stake in the cryptocurrency exchange. The company is valued at between $2 billion and $3 billion, according to a news agency article. Bloomberg.

People familiar with the matter, such as FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Tron founder Justin Sun, are among the investors who have already spoken to the Huobi boss.

Li aims to sell about 60% of the company. A potential deal could generate more than $1 billion for the founder, making it one of the biggest deals in the crypto industry to date.

Huobi’s existing investors, including ZhenFund and Sequoia China, were informed of Li’s intentions during a shareholders’ meeting in July, and one person said the deal could be finalized before the end of August.

“He [Li] expects the new shareholders to be more powerful and resourceful and value the Huobi brand and invest more capital and energy to fuel Huobi’s growth,” a Huobi Global official told Bloombergrefusing to provide more details.

HT, the native token of the Huobi exchange, also soared from $4.45 to $5.56 after the publication of the article by Bloomberg.

It is currently priced at $5.25 and is posting a staggering 17.7% increase in the last 24 hours, according to website CoinMarketCap.

Huobi Global, FTX and Tron did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the decrypt.

The impact of the bear market on Huobi’s operations

Founded in 2013, Huobi was kicked out of China amid the crypto industry crackdown in 2021 and is currently registered in the Seychelles.

With a trading volume of nearly $1 billion in the last 24 hours, it is now one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world.

The first rumors that the Huobi founder wants to sell his stake in the company surfaced in early July, when Chinese crypto journalist Colin Wu shared the news via Twitter.

“With a profit of over $1 billion in 2021, Huobi could be the most profitable exchange in the world, followed by Binance in 2021, and has many compliance licenses. But when the market is down, it can be difficult to sell it at a higher price,” Wu said at the time.

With a profit of more than $1 billion in 2021, Huobi may be the most profitable exchange in the world after Binance in 2021, and it holds many compliance licenses. But when the market is down, it may be difficult to sell higher value.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 1, 2022

Before that, Wu had informed that due to the drastic drop in revenue following the departure of all its Chinese users, Huobi was preparing for a reduction of up to 30% of its employees.

*Translated by Daniela Pereira do Nascimento with permission from decrypt.co.

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