Huobi’s real acquirer is still Justin Sun

In the early morning of October 8, Huobi announced that its controlling shareholder company had transferred all of its HuobiGlobal shares to a fund under Baiyu Capital. The M&A fund under Baiyu Capital became the largest shareholder and actual controller of HuobiGlobal.

However, multiple insiders told Wu that Justin Sun is actually the core investor of this M&A fund. Justin Sun himself was at the delivery site in Singapore on October 8. Currently , Justin Sun is actively recruiting , and some departments of Huobi are also being taken over (the original C-level executives have had their powers revoked and resigned one after another). The acquisition price is US$1 billion or more.

Sun Yuchen responded to Wu's statement by saying "I didn't participate". But then Sun Yuchen's official social media announced that he had become Huobi's global advisor, and the advisors included Chen Yihua, founder of Baiyu Capital, Du Jun, Sun Yuchen, Wang Yang, vice president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Valkyrle Leah Wald. The meaning is self-evident.

Currently, Huobi Japan and Huobi Korea are coordinating the division and sale. Li Lin will still be responsible for the liquidation of domestic users' assets. Chen Yihua, a former person at Baiyu Capital, was once a partner of Jinglin Asset, which is known as China's No. 1 private equity firm. Therefore, it was mistakenly reported that Jinglin was the financial backer behind the acquisition of Huobi. However, Wu said that he learned that Jinglin did not participate in the acquisition, and Baiyu was more of a "bridge" for Sun Yuchen to acquire.

As for the reason for doing so, insiders analyzed that Li Lin was more concerned about the security factor (Sun Yuchen is not a "good buyer" in the eyes of the Chinese government, and Baiyu seems to be related to Boyu ), and Sun Yuchen was afraid of causing dissatisfaction with Binance, which has always supported it, especially since it has close ties with FTX, Binance's current biggest competitor, in this transaction.

On August 12, Bloomberg reported that Huobi’s Li Lin is seeking to sell its majority stake in the exchange at a valuation of $3 billion. FTX and Sun Yuchen have already made preliminary contact with him. Shareholders such as Zhen Fund and Sequoia China learned of Li Lin’s decision at the shareholders’ meeting in July. Sun Yuchen tweeted to explain: “We are not currently involved in any matters related to the Bloomberg report.” SBF said it has no intention of acquiring Huobi. But there are market rumors that FTX has invested money to help Sun Yuchen. This may push Binance, which has always supported Sun Yuchen, to the position of its competitor.

Sun Yuchen graduated from Peking University. In 2015, he was selected as the first student of Jack Ma's Hupan University. In 2017, he founded TRON. In 2019, he acquired the exchange Poloniex. In the same year, he bought the Buffett lunch. In 2021, Sun Yuchen became Grenada's representative to the World Trade Organization. However, Sun Yuchen has been controversial for his radical marketing methods and faced some government regulatory issues in the United States and China.

At the recent TOKEN2049 event, Justin Sun appeared at a party with former employees at Huobi. In the first half of the year, Justin Sun and FTX CFO also often discussed acquisition matters in Singapore.