China has made the survival of cryptocurrency businesses difficult with its strict regulations. This has resulted in many businesses moving their base to different parts of the world and the United States was among the ones seeing a large migration, especially of miners. Nevertheless, one of the prominent exchanges in China, Huobi was also planning to rejoin the U.S. markets, as per the co-founder Du Jun.
Huobi was indirectly forced out of the U.S market two years ago to comply with changing regulations and at the end of 2021, it had to retire existing mainland Chinese users’ accounts and pick Singapore as its Asia headquarters.
Jun stated,
“In 2018, we tried to enter the U.S. market but we quickly withdrew ourselves because we didn’t have a strong commitment to the market at that time and we didn’t have a good management team in the U.S.”
In an interview with CNBC, the CEO of Huobi clarified that the company will focus on asset management, instead of launching its exchange after missteps last time around. He further stated,
“I expect asset management to be a bigger business than an exchange, which echoes the traditional finance market as well. I don’t think the exchange is a necessary element for entering the U.S.”
Asset management has been catching more heat in the United States given the rising interest of the institutional investors. According to a comprehensive research report by Market Research Future, the crypto asset management market was valued at $455.3 million in 2021 and is expected to reach $1,807.9 million by 2028.
Although Huobi did not clarify which business or service it plans to re-enter the United States with, it would spark some competition amid the existing crypto businesses in the country. Despite pulling back from the United States and now China, Huobi has remained among the top 10 crypto exchanges by trading volume globally.
Moreover, Huobi seemed poised to keep its promise of returning in a more “integrate and impactful fashion” as it does own an asset management business already, called Huobi Tech listed in Hong Kong.