Huobi Founder Sells 100% Stake in Justin Sun Fund: Report

Huobi Founder Sells 100% Stake in Justin Sun Fund: Report

Huobi Global's majority shareholder Leon Li has agreed to sell his entire stake in the crypto exchange to Hong Kong-based investment firm About Capital, reportedly headed by Tron founder Justin Sun.

About Capital's buyout arm will control Li's stake after the transaction closes, the company said in a statement Statement on Saturday. Li will no longer be involved in Huobi's operations. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Huobi is one of the world's largest crypto trading platforms with an analytics unit Messari Ranked eighth by total volume, having processed nearly $111 million worth of trades in the last 24 hours.

China-based journalist Colin Wu reported on Monday that Tron founder Justin Sun is About Capital's core investor, meaning he is the true buyer of the stake (which the report pegs at $1 billion).

The controversial The crypto entrepreneur told Wu that he did not participate. Nevertheless, he is now officially one of them Huobi's global advisors, along with Leah Wald, CEO of Valkyrie Investment, and Ted Chen, founder of About Capital. Sun even updated his Twitter bio to reflect his new Huobi title.

In addition to Hong Kong-based fund manager About Capital, Chen also founded Chinese hedge fund giant Greenwoods Asset Management.

Sun was also said to be present at the recent TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore at the Huobi venue.

Huobi Global is headquartered in Seychelles, the company said Korean website. But its regional subsidiaries appear to have bases in various locations, with Singapore serving as the company's Asian headquarters.

Huobi says it is then looking for a new base in Europe move its spot trading operations to a Gibraltar-registered subsidiary last November. A Huobi spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on the matter.

In any case, Huobi says the deal has no impact on its core business and business management team, but that it will now take on international brand promotion and business expansion projects. This includes the appointment of the new Global Strategic Advisory Board, on which Sun now sits.

This is not Sun's first foray into crypto exchanges. Sun was previously part of another investment group acquired Crypto exchange Poloniex in 2019 from stablecoin issuer Circle. He initially rejected the takeover.

Huobi founder bought long before Justin Sun

During his time as boss, Li reportedly briefly handed over daily management tasks to his deputies to address health-related issues.

The company gradually leave its key market China begins in September 2021 after Beijing's crypto ban. Due to the subsequent decline in sales, Huobi was forced to begin cutting 30% of its workforce, Wu, this year reported.

It has since expanded into other markets, including Brazil and Turkey, but rivals such as Binance, FTX and OKCoin rank higher on the basis of “Trust Score” rankings on CoinGecko.

Li, the founder and CEO of Huobi Global, has been in talks with investors to sell his majority stake in the stock market for some time. Bloomberg reported in August that he only wanted to sell 60% of his stake and was seeking a company valuation of between $2 billion and $3 billion.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Sun were reportedly among the potential investors who spoke to Li about the share sale. But Bankman-Fried denied the rumors and said FTX has no plans to acquire the exchange.

Sun did not respond to Blockworks' request for comment by press time.

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The post Huobi Founder Sells 100% Stake to Justin Sun Fund: Report is not financial advice.