The Bitcoin Exchange That Once Dominated China Is Heading to Japan

At one time the Beijing-based digital currency exchange Huobi was once the largest bitcoin trading platform in China before the central bank stopped domestic exchanges from trading cryptocurrencies. This month Huobi has revealed its carved a deal with the Japanese financial institution SBI Group and will be launching two new cryptocurrency exchanges in Q1 of 2018.

Also read: Japan’s GDP Grows Due to Bitcoin Wealth Effect

The Company That Operated China’s Largest Bitcoin Exchange Sets Its Sights On Japan

Before the beginning of 2017, China’s top three exchanges swapped the most bitcoins worldwide, capturing the lion’s share of globes BTC trades. One of those exchanges was Huobi, a company headquartered in Beijing who held China’s top BTC trade volumes since 2013. However, in January of 2017, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) started cracking down on domestic exchanges facilitating cryptocurrency trades within the country. At first, things just seemed like some harsher regulatory action would take place, but the central bank shut down all of the Chinese exchanges who enabled digital asset trades with the renminbi.

Now the trading platform’s parent company Huobi Group is partnering with the financial institution SBI formerly known as Softbank Investment Group. The two plan on launching two virtual currency exchanges one with a tentative name “SBI Virtual Currencies,” and the other “Huobi Japan.”

SBI Believes Huobi Group’s Track Record Is Enough to Fulfill The Basic Agreement

SBI also reveals the bank plans to use “Huobi’s technology, know-how and human resources” to establish top of the line cryptocurrency-related business in the Asian region. With the partnership and creation of the two new exchanges, SBI Group plans to acquire “30 percent of the equity in Huobi Group’s Japanese entity.” The organization also plans to take 10 percent of Huobi Group’s Korean entity and Huobi, in turn, will receive 30% of the equity in the SBI Virtual Currencies business. SBI explains that Huobi has a solid reputation in the digital currency space which has laid the foundation for the basic agreement:

SBI Holdings has reached a basic agreement with Huobi Group (1.65 million accounts, maximum daily transaction volume of over CNY 30 billion (approximately JPY 510 billion), which has a track record of stably operating a major cryptocurrency exchange in China, to explore the following alliances.

At the moment Huobi Group also operates a global cryptocurrency exchange called Huobi.pro which sees a lot of volume from regions like Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong. The company also still operates its China News and Research Platform and its Huobi Wallet Digital Asset Management service. The two exchanges in Japan will be the company’s next expansion into the Asian region.

What do you think about Huobi creating two new exchanges in Japan? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Huobi, and SBI Group. 

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