Huobi cryptocurrency exchange logo displayed on a smartphone.
Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto via Getty Images
Digital currency exchange Huobi said on Friday that it plans to chop global employment by around 20% as part of the most recent round of layoffs that will hit the beleaguered cryptocurrency industry.
In response to data from CoinGecko, the Seychelles-based company is one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges on this planet, handling around $370 million in trading volume per day.
“The planned layoff rate is around 20%,” Justin Sun, a member of Huobi’s advisory board, told CNBC, adding that the cuts had yet to be implemented.
“With the present slump, a really lean team will be maintained in the long run. Staff optimization is geared toward implementing the brand strategy, optimizing the structure, improving efficiency and returning to the highest three.”
Huobi had about 1,600 employees worldwide as of October, in accordance with a Financial Times report.
Huobi’s native HT token at one point dropped to $4.3355 on Friday, down greater than 7% from 24 hours earlier, in accordance with data from CoinMarketCap.
Following the collapse of FTX, crypto traders are in search of clues as to what the subsequent company to fall victim to within the downturn in digital assets will be.
In response to the most recent available data from CryptoQuant, large numbers of investors poured out of centralized exchanges and nearly 300,000 bitcoins were moved between November 6 and December 7.
Last month, Binance briefly halted USDC stablecoin withdrawals, raising concerns about its own ability to cover customer redemptions. It has since resumed USDC withdrawals.
As much as $6 billion in digital tokens was pulled from the exchange between December 12 and 14.
Within the so-calledproof of reservesIn a November 25 statement, the world’s largest crypto exchange revealed that it has a reserve ratio of 101%, indicating it has more assets than liabilities.
Doubts have been raised in regards to the effectiveness of reserve confirmation reports, which supply only a snapshot of the assets held by the exchange at one time limit.
Consulting firm Mazars, which produced a separate report confirming reserves for Binance, completely stopped producing such documents for crypto firms on Dec. 16, citing “concerns in regards to the way these reports are understood by the general public.”
Recently, cryptocurrency investors have expressed doubts about Huobi’s financial health.
Sun dismissed concerns in regards to the company’s solvency as “pure FUD,” meaning “fear, uncertainty, doubt,” which cryptocurrency investors use to explain what they perceive as negative or false news.
“User assets are secure,” he said. “As a virtual asset trading platform that has been operating for 10 years, Huobi’s business philosophy is to guard the safety of users’ assets.”
Huobi has accomplished a reserve review that shows its total assets are actually $2.9 billion, matching the quantity of funds deposited by users, Sun said.
Huobi was acquired by About Capital Management, a Hong Kong-based asset management firm, on October 7. Sun, who founded the Tron blockchain project, is an advisor to Huobi.
Huobi was originally founded in China but was forced out of the country after Beijing’s intense attack on the crypto industry.
Currently, Huobi is engaged in consulting and research outside of China, while its business operations are conducted outside of mainland China. The corporate has offices in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and the USA