Huobi, founded and established by Jun Du in September of 2013, is a digital currency exchange or platform that was founded in China. Their headquarters is based in Singapore today and they have offices in a few other countries or jurisdictions. A Huobi exchange review reveals that this cryptocurrency exchange serves millions of users in 130+ countries. They offer 190+ cryptocurrency pairs and access to just short of 400 markets.

A Huobi exchange review also reveals that Huobi was once, at an accumulative turnover in excess of 1.2 trillion dollars (USD), the biggest digital asset exchange in the world with an almost 50% market share. This was before the Chinese government banned Bitcoin exchanges in September 2017, prompting Huobi to halt Bitcoin withdrawals as well as Yuan-to-Bitcoin trading. This negatively impacted Huobi and its customers – leading to substantial losses. This is the reason why Huobi China only exists today as a research and blockchain consulting platform.

The impact of the Chinese government’s decision to ban Bitcoin exchanges could be felt across the globe – as it negatively impacted crypto prices. However, digital currency exchanges based in China undoubtedly suffered the most, including Huobi. A Huobi exchange review reveals that the impact of this ban and prior controversies are probably the primary reasons for Huobi’s drop in rankings. One such controversy involved the depositing of crypto funds within the wrong wallets (September 2014). Another controversy involved the decision by Huobi and OKCoin to invest the equivalent of a $150 million of idle user funds in what is described as “wealth-management products” (August 2017).

Huobi is still ranked within the top 20 cryptocurrency exchanges by volume today, but much lower down the list than what was previously the case. In 2019, Huobi has been making clear efforts to reclaim more of the market. They have recently announced the launch of an OTC desk for institutional investors. On 22nd May, 2019, they ran a special “Bitcoin Pizza Day” promotion (commemorating the day that Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two pizzas for 10k BTC, back when a single bitcoin was worth only three cents). This promotion included discounted BTC, giveaways, and the launch of their new Reserve Right Token (RSR) stablecoin. This promotion caused a boost in the price of Huobi Token (HT) but it remains to be seen whether this will result in any long-term improvements of the platform’s overall trading volume and popularity.
Huobi Global has also joined in the IEO trend with its FastTrack launch platform. This platform was originally branded as Prime Lite but was renamed within weeks. It’s hard to say whether this was due to controversy over the ThunderCore IEO, or unrelated reasons.

Huobi focuses on customer security and safety and a reliable and secure platform, wherefore it adapted special security procedures. It uses offline cold storage, multi-layer verification processes and collaboration with Goldman Sachs and industry specialists.

Trading fees at Huobi amount to 0.2% while withdrawal fees and minimum depend on the currency and account type (unverified, verified). Huobi supports fiat currencies and has special regulations for the withdrawal and deposit of USD. Furthermore, it offers a VIP membership that comes with a VIP fee schedule. The higher the VIP membership level is, the lower the fees get. Unlike others, the level does not depend on volume traded but has to be purchased before with Huobi Tokens. For payment, Huobi accepts various payment methods, including Bank account, Paypal, SWIFT, PayNOW, etc.

The trading platform is simple and straightforward and offers leverage trading (customers need to sign an additional agreement). Additionally, it exists as a mobile app and uses charts from trading view. Unlike others, the trading platform shows the statistics of coin and informs the trader about the coin.

Next, to the main trading platform, Huobi also offers two complimentary ones; HADAX and OTC. While HADAX (Huobi Autonomous Digital Asset Exchange) is more for professional traders, the OTC section focuses on certified merchants that want rather anonymously to move large quantities of cryptocurrency.

Outstanding at Huobi is the customer support that manages inquiries fast and efficient on a 24/7 basis.

Update June 30, 2021:

Huobi Global Timeline

2013; Former Oracle engineer, Leon Li, buys the Huobi domain and takes BTC trading live.

2014; Huobi quadruples its turnover of over $4 billion and proves the need for digital asset exchange in Asia.

2016; Huobi reported $247 billion in turnover, over half of the world’s digital asset exchange market share.

2017; China drops crypto trading, and heavily impacts China-based exchanges like Huobi. Huobi has to relocate to Singapore and begin to globalize its platform in Japan, Korea and Russia. The Huobi Token is introduced as well as Huobi’s IEO platform Spotlight.

2018; Huobi’s turnover went over $1trillion, and Huobi became one of the world’s top three crypto exchanges.

Huobi account

The user interface is simple and practical. Factors to consider however are the version of Huobi and the geographical location of the user. Huobi’s international site works outside the US, while American residents must use Huobi US or HBUS. It is hard to find the right international website among huobi.com, hbus.com, huobi.pro, and hbg.com, which is quite confusing for users. Regarding privacy and security, signing up on Huobi entails a two-factor authentication which is important to avoid fraud.

Huobi’s features

Trading pairs
Customer service
User Protection Fund
Institutional trading accounts
Derivatives trading
Margin trading

Huobi’s VIP membership fees

Huobi offers fee discounts for their VIP trading group of traders according to their levels of membership; the higher the level, the higher the discount as seen below:

VIP 1 - 10%
VIP 2 - 20%
VIP 3 - 30%
VIP 4 - 40%
VIP 5 - 50%

Social Impact

Huobi Group announced its commitment to $1 million BTC and fiat currency to UNICEF in April 2021 to abet global blockchain development and innovations to impact children. Through Huobi Charity Limited, Huobi distributes funds to the UNICEF CrytoFund and UNICEF’s Innovation Fund. Both funds aim at securing cryptocurrency and financing open-source technologies for social welfare, and children in particular. Similarly, Huobi Charity’s vision is to shape the impact that crypto can have on the wellbeing of these children, and societal problems like poverty, healthcare and education. Part of the donation includes seven BTC to the UNICEF CryptoFund estimated at $350,000 while the rest will go to the UNICEF Innovation Fund to support the growth of a digital financial future.

Bogomil Alexandrov

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