Huobi Takes Over Majority Stake in Japanese Cryptocurrency Trading Platform BitTrade
In a bid to further expand its operations in Japan, popular cryptocurrency exchange Huobi acquired Japan’s crypto trading platform BitTrade. The deal was made through Huobi’s Japanese subsidiary Huobi Japan.
Earlier, Huobi had planned to enter the Japanese market and launch two cryptocurrency exchanges in collaboration with the SBI Group. However, SBI later decided to opt out of the deal and go solo launching its own cryptocurrency exchange ‘SBI Virtual Currencies’.
As part of the new deal, Huobi now gets a major controlling stake in BitTrade. Eric Cheng, owner of the BitTrade exchange said that that this acquisition was part of Huobi’s plan “to aggressively scale up the platform” and expand its global operations.
Chris Lee, ex-CEO of OKEx has been appointed as the independent director of Huobi Japan Holdings and the CFO for Huobi Universal Inc. Business Insider quoted Lee saying: “Leveraging on BitTrade’s leadership team and its Japanese government-approved license, this is just the beginning as we look to grow BitTrade into the most dominant player in the Japanese cryptocurrency market.”
He further added: “Together, we will leverage on Huobi’s global footprint, excellent management team, and advanced security systems to grow BitTrade into a market-leading position in Japan. Having a long-term partnership with an established brand such as Huobi is the right step for BitTrade as we look to continue our rapid growth trajectory.”
Post the Chinese crackdown on digital currencies last year, Huobi was forced to move its operations outside. Hub has now set up its headquarters in the crypto-friendly nation of Singapore. Huobi is one of the most popular crypto-exchanges worldwide with millions of users and USD 1 trillion operating capacity.
Huobi has its operations spread at many other global locations like HongKong, Australia, Korea, UAE, Luxembourg, and other locations. The crypto-trading platform also plans to open its next offices in Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Canada.