Huobi to Start Laying off Staff and Founder May Sell Stake
Colin Wu, the Chinese journalist who is also known as Wu Blockchain, said that there was a possibility of Huobi laying off about 30% of its workforce, as the crypto firm is experiencing a sharp decline in its revenue. The reporter further said that Leon Li, one of the co-founders of Huobi, may also be looking to sell a major stake in the company.
Huobi feeling the turmoil
China’s local crypto and blockchain journalist had announced at the end of June that Huobi would soon begin to lay off its staff and it was possible that the company would let go more than 30% of its workforce.
This would make Huobi another company in a series of them that have been laying off their staff in the crypto space of late because of the turmoil the market is going through. Some of the other companies that have already done so include Coinbase, 2TM, Bybit, Rain Financial, Buenbit, Bitso, Gemini and BlockFi.
The volatile crypto market and the crypto winter has driven these companies to cut down their staff. According to Wu, Huobi had come to this decision because removing Chinese users from its platform had resulted in a sharp fall in its revenue. However, it should be noted that Huobi has not made any such announcement officially.
Huobi representatives speaks
According to a spokesperson of the company, the company’s policies were under review because of the market environment. He said that Huobi Global was considering its existing manpower, along with its hiring policies, in order to re-align them in a way that they fulfill the company’s operational needs. The Huobi representative had added that layoffs could also be considered, but there had been no confirmation.
Another exclusive announcement that had come from Wu was about Leon Li, the co-founder of the firm, who has more than 50% of Huobi’s shares. Sequoia China is Huobi’s second-largest shareholder. According to Wu, Huobi had seen its revenue plummet after it had to remove Chinese users from its platform, which has led to the decision of letting staff go.
The report of its co-founder wanting to sell some of his stake in the company would certainly be disappointing.
Huobi’s growth
In the last 12 months, the Huobi exchange had enjoyed a significant amount of growth. According to statistics, it is the fifth largest platform of its kind in the market. There are 577 digital currencies that can be found on the platform and a total of 1,027 trading pairs to choose from. As far as assets under management (AUM) are concerned, Huobi takes the third spot in the list of centralized exchanges.
According to data from multiple resources, the platform has USDT worth $746.3 million, 2.13 million ether tokens and 160,950 bitcoins. Back in May, the company had announced the acquisition of Bitex, which is a Latin American exchange. In June, Huobi had also announced the launch of Ivy Blocks, which is an investment focused on Web3 and blockchain.
